Denied Interpreters at Howard County General Hospital?
Any Deaf or HoH people who have been denied interpreters, video-remote interpreting, or auxiliary services, i.e., TTY or closed captioning devices, by the Howard County General Hospital located at Columbia, Maryland, including its Emergency Room, please contact Elizabeth at mishkazena@aol.com. It has come to my attention that two deaf people were denied accessible services as required by ADA and Section 504. I am checking out to see if these incidents were isolated or whether Howard County General Hospital has been regularly violating the civil rights of the Deaf and HOH citizens. This applies to both deaf and hoh people who are patients and also those deaf/hoh people whose relatives are patients, regardless of the hearing status of these patients.
Incidentally if any deaf/hoh people have been denied services at any local hospital in the immediate Washington DC area, please contact me, too.
The hospitals have had 16 years to clean up their acts and they are fully aware of their legal obligations under ADA. It is up to us, deaf and hard of hearing people, to demand that they start respecting our civil rights accorded us by various laws.
Everything will be kept in strictest confidence. One has already expressed the possiblity of legal action to force the hospital to comply with current laws. If there is enough evidence, a civil rights lawsuit may be possible.
Please spread the word
Thank you
Elizabeth
6 Comments »
Leave a comment
-
Archives
- November 2006 (99)
- October 2006 (506)
-
Categories
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
Actually, hospitals are required to provide auxiliary aids both under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the ADA.
I sued a hospital in Alabama because they did not provide me with an interpreter for my surgery. As the case dragged on, a law firm successfully sued all the hospitals in the Tenet hospital system (over 100). This wiped out my own ADA case.
However, we continued under 504 and won a settlement.
Be aware that you cannot collect monetary damages under ADA (only the lawyers get the $$$$$) but you can under 504. It’s important, in filing a complaint, that both 504 and ADA are cited.
Jay, I am glad you sued that hospital. I am not familiar with the Tenet Hospital system. Is that based on AL?
Sometimes we must sue to force the hospitals to comply with the laws, just like you and I did.
Tenet is a huge hospital system, with many facilities in FL and CA. I think it is based in CA. The law group that sued them had a blind person, a deaf person, a wheelchair user and another person with a disability, to sue ‘em all in a gigantic class action ADA suit
I was recently asked, as an owner of an interpreting agency, to present to a group of concerned citizens in Arizona in regards to access to interpreting services in hospitals.
The primary complaint about hospital interpreting services wasn’t so much as the quality of interpreting itself but rather the response time.
One Deaf person related a story about how he had arrived at the ER, requested an interpreter, and ended up waiting FIVE HOURS before being treated. The hospital’s response was that they had willing to treat him earlier than that but they preferred to wait until an interpreter showed up just to make sure “effective communication” was happening before they provided treatment.
Sometimes it’s not so much as the quality of interpreting services, it’s the response time to consider as well.
Tough issue to wrestle with!
I Believe very strongly that the incident at HCGH was an isolated situation. The hospital is normally very GOOD about providing interpreters. They are normally sensitive about the needs of all disabilities and the services they require.
Private, the hospital must provide live interpreters within reasonable time and if the patients desire, they can ask for video remote interpreter (VRI) while waiting for live interpreters to show up. This new interpretation was made by Dept of Justice (you can read this further at this link: http://www.justice.gov/crt/ada/laurelco.htm)
Terry B, I hope so, but only way to find out is the number of responses I get from my electronic query. Time will tell if it is an isolated incident or not. However, twice is two times too much and what this person went last month was horrible.