Hands On

Sanerah

Did anyone watch Hands On, the only TV programme for the Deaf in Ireland, yesterday? I thought it was very interesting! I think it's a disgrace the HSE haven't even considered Deaf people in their Intercultural Health Strategy!

lizzylinda

never saw programme but study sign language and our instructor (who's deaf) is always telling us how the deaf in this country are discriminated against.. it's disgusting, deaf people cant use an irish airline here without a hearing person travelling with them...& sign language isn't even recognised in ireland as a language!!! my teachers wife who's also deaf, recently had a baby, the baby was quite sick when she was born and rushed to hospital in dublin, the hospital never provided a sign language interpreter & so both parents were ignored by doctors and nurses and never really knew what was going on. when they asked would the doctor write down the information he said he didn't have time & just walked away and left them standing there....

Sanerah

If you missed it you can watch it online www.rte.ie/tv/handson. The second part is on this Sunday! Make sure u watch it it's really interesting. I can't believe this is happening in the 21st Century! the HSE should cop themselves on!

RainyDay

For anyone interested in watching it online, it is Programme 8 in the series.

First the bad news - there was a bit of unreasonable whinging going on. For example, the guy who whinged about not knowing the new email address for SLIS. Come on, guys - don't play the victim. Take some control and find out the email address. I thought it was a mistake to play the race card, and complain about the HSE accomodating non-Irish nationals. It isn't an 'us-or-them' situation, and the Deaf community should focus on getting their own needs met, not taking potshots at other groups.

The good news was that the main thrust of the programme was very strong in highlighting these important gaps in service provision. Unfortunately, I guess that Hands-On has a low audience figure, and they really need to get this stuff covered on Prime Time or Joe Duffy if they want anything to happen.

I'm disappointed that Niall Crowley didn't highlight the specific provisions of S.28 of the Disability Act 2005 which states specifically that

Where a public body communicates with one or more
persons, the head of the body shall ensure—
(a) if the communication is an oral one and the person or persons
aforesaid has a hearing impairment and so
requests [...]
that, as far as practicable, the contents of the communication are
communicated in a form that is accessible to the person concerned.

The complaints process under this Act allows complainants to refer complaints to the Ombudsman. A raft of formal complaints to the HSE with onward referral to the Ombudsman would be an effective tactic in getting some attention on this issue.

paperclip

Just to correct something- deaf people indeed are allowed on airlines on their own- I'm deaf and have gone on many, many flights on my own. I've never had any problems. The irony is that most of my problems actually reside with the medical professionals I've had to deal with in the past- I've rarely come away feeling happy about my experiences. I wonder what the deal is with that?