Discrimination is not the only issues that have been occurring in the services provided. There are many others specific issues and they are: deaf awareness, booking interpreters, having access to information and booking an appointment to see their local GP. Firstly, there are evidenced shown that many hospital staff is having a problem regarding hearing impaired/deaf patients due to the training in ‘deaf awareness’. It is important to have deaf awareness, without it the NHS provision would not work as effectively as it seems. As Dickson and Magowan (2014) note: “effective communication between nurses and patients is a vital part of safe and effective nursing care.” Having effective communication between nurses and...
Discrimination is not the only issues that have been occurring in the services provided. There are many others specific issues and they are: deaf awareness, booking interpreters, having access to information and booking an appointment to see their local GP. Firstly, there are evidenced shown that many hospital staff is having a problem regarding hearing impaired/deaf patients due to the training in ‘deaf awareness’. It is important to have deaf awareness, without it the NHS provision would not work as effectively as it seems. As Dickson and Magowan (2014) note: “effective communication between nurses and patients is a vital part of safe and effective nursing care.” Having effective communication between nurses and Deaf patients would improve deaf awareness. Also, having an effective communication is essential because without communicating through the preferred language of the Deaf person will have a gap and communication barriers between deaf people and the NHS staff.
Secondly, as said by Barnett et al (2011): “interpreter services are essential for communication between deaf sign language users and those who are not fluent in sign language”. Again, communication is important, so that both deaf and hearing people can able to communicate with each other through a sign language interpreter. It is possible that booking an interpreter may be expensive due to the hours that the deaf persons desire to spend at the GP. This inconsistency may be due to the GP surgeries refusing the requests for British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters and telling patients that it is too expensive. In order increase the demand of BSL interpreters’ services in the setting, the NHS should start to support funding, in order to increase the power of sign language interpreter services, including advanced training to prepare interpreters for public health-related and settings. To prevent discrimination from happening, it is important to have an option for deaf people with mental health issues such as having a one to one counseling support. This may help them to discuss their emotional wellbeing and provide suitable support services to help them with recovery.
