G'day Everyone!
How many times have you and your doctor use a relay service to communicate? Some time? All times? or NONE at all?
It seems these days that there's STILL discrimination going on when doctors try to communicate over the phone and through a VRS (relay services). Do doctors go through with the call or hang up? Answer: They hang up.
Here's today's action feature : http://rsgeo007.blogspot.com/2008/06/doctors-and-relay-hung-up.html . Read that post and then come back here.
Now, if this becomes a NEW issue for the deaf community here, then we need to make it clear to doctors. Deaf people are patients too. We all got medical issues. We all need to hear from the doctor and being told of what we suffer of or facing treatment options.
We don't need to see doctors calling hearing family members and having them (family members) to "relay" sensitive information that they don't need to know about. In Emergency, that's fine. But when it's NON-Emergency, use the relay services.
So today, my post is being addressed to all Medical professional people: Please doctors, treat us (the deaf community), like REAL PEOPLE. We are NOT second class people. Relay services are there to help us communicate with you. We need your help so that we stay healthy! Relay people are bonded and certified people. They can't share information out side the relay services! They know better than that! So, pick up that phone and learn about relay services.
Or better yet, start investing a website, e-mail, or instant messenger systems to communicate with your deaf patients!
My post is very important today. I hope Doctors will listen and make a difference for us all.
Thank you.
Semper FI!
3 comments:
That doesn't happen here in OC, California.
What's done differently out there than elsewhere?
You know, Doctors, lawyers and any place you call via relay, people who answer those calls generally hang up the phone because they never deal with relay before and have no clus that the person that is calling is deaf and using relay to call them. One problem notice is when they call, they explain to the person about what is relay and so on, the person hungs up not knowing the deaf person is calling via relay service. They assume that someone in relay wants to talk to them. I am like saying, duh? because have they ever thought if they go to a foregein country and use a translater. The translater is like a third person and that same idea is with the relay service. So, how can we deaf get the relay to educate the general public about relay services and not to fear or to learn that relay is an interpreter for the deaf person who is making the phone call? I wish something was done to fix that problem.
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