Sign Language intepreters needed at health facilities
  
By Vida Essel
It was around 2am when her husband, Mr Mensah, also a (hearing impaired) person felt ill.
After taking some pain killers, which yielded no result, he was rushed to the hospital for better diagnosis.
Mabel Ansah, (not her real name), also a hearing impaired person told Daily Graphic.
She, however, met the shock of her life, “Doctors and nurses were on duty but not a single of them could understand my husband and I”.
“I could neither write nor read so after many hours of failed attempt, the doctors, nurses and I had no choice but to leave my sick husband to his fate”.
Mabel’s husband was pronounced dead later in the day at the hospital, a situation, she said could have been prevented if there was a sign language interpreter at the hospital.
Many more of these causalities have been recorded over the years in the country, but no one seems to show concern about it.
According to the Project Co-coordinator of the Ghana Association of the Deaf, Mr Robert Sampona, similar incidents happened to a pregnant woman about two years ago, when she was given a wrong prescription at the hospital which resulted in the death of her unborn baby and later herself.
 Communication plays a vital role in health care delivery, for a doctor to be able to diagnose what exactly is wrong with a patients, he/she ought to be able to tell how they are feeling.
This procedure is usually easy for persons who can speak and express themselves properly.
However, the situation is different for persons with hearing and speech impairment. 
To them the task is a cumbersome one and can only do so through an interpreter.
Though the problem calls for an integrated concern, not much had been achieved even with the existence of the 1992 Constitution and the 2006 Disability Act that require health care institutions in the country to make provision of appropriate facilities for disabled persons.

Sign language
Sign language is the major communication tool for hearing and speech impaired person. Without it, their very existence makes no meaning since it creates a barrier between them and society.
It is a language which uses manual communication and body language to convey meaning, as opposed to acoustically conveyed sound patterns.
It involves a combination of hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to express a speaker's thoughts.
Though very useful tool for them, not all hearing and speech impaired person are able to express themselves with it because the language is not universal.
To be able to sign properly, one requires further tutoring.

Sign language interpreters in healthcare facilities in Ghana
Accessibility to quality health care is very important to the development of every individual, society and the nation.
However, lack of sign language in hospitals in the country has made it difficult for the hearing impaired in Ghana to acquire the proper medical attention when ill.
According to the Executive Director of GNAD, Mr. James Sambian, none of the hospitals in the country has hired the services of sign language interpreters.
He, however, mentioned that the Ridge Hospital in Accra makes use of the association’s services when the need arises since it is closer to them.
Mr. Sambian also indicated that those who could afford employ the services of interpreters whenever they visited the hospitals.
A visit to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) and the Mamprobi Poly clinic confirmed Mr. Sambian’s assertation, as none of the department in the two hospitals had hired the services of sign language interpreters.
The Public Relation Officer of KBTH Mr. Mustapha Salifu said the hospital did not often receive patients with hearing impairment, but the few that visited came with their interpreters.
This suggests that, hearing impaired persons who cannot afford to pay for the services of an interpreter, cannot access quality health care.
 This situation has caused many of them to stay at home when sick, rather than visit health facilities in the country.

Deaf population in Ghana
According to the 2010 Population and Housing census, a total of 110,625 people in the country are deaf.
 Out of the figure women forms the majority with 60,500, the remaining, 50,125 were men.
The Ashanti Region has the highest population with a total of 18, 065, followed by the Eastern Region  with 15,076, Volta Region with 14,335, Northern Region, 10,838, Greater Accra, 10,713
The Central, Brong Ahafo, Western, Upper East and the Upper West regions have 10,702, 9,130, 8,691, 8,511 and 4,564 respectively.
The figure indicates that there is a large number of people in the country who have been neglected by authorities in in respect of access to quality health care, thus putting their lives at risk, all because of communication barrier.

Policies
Despite the fact that the 1992 Constitution, Article29 (6), provides that “As far as practicable, every place to which the public have access to shall have appropriate facilities for disabled persons”, many public places including healthcare facilities have turned a deaf ear to the provision.
Also, the Disability Act, of 2006, (Act 715) provides that the Ministry of Health, in formulating health policies, shall provide for free general specialist medical care, rehabilitate operation treatment and appropriate assistive devices for persons with total disability, but none of these requirements have been met.
 The Act again mandates the Ministry of Health to include the study of disability and disability-related issues in the curricula of the training institutions for health professionals to develop appropriate human resource to provide general and specialised rehabilitation services.
Despite the existence of all these legal frameworks, deaf persons have not been catered for in the various hospitals in the country because there are no sign language interpreters, the only important tool that aids their very existence.
 Mr. Sambian attributed the inability of the ministry and healthcare facility to adhere to these policies to lack of knowledge about the existence of the law or financial constraints.

Call on Government
At a recent advocacy workshop to develop a workable plan for the placement of sign language interpreters in public healthcare in Accra, the National Association of Deaf (GNAD) called on government to incorporate sign language interpreters into the healthcare delivery system to facilitate effective patient-doctor interaction.
They also urged the government to compel public institutions to comply with the provisions since they had failed to abide by them so far.
According to GNAD, the country has neglected them for far too long and it was time for the government and all agencies involved to take a second look at the plight of the hearing impaired persons and provide permanent solution to it.
 Mr. Sambian called on Ghanaians to rally behind the association in its quest for better conditions at health facilities for the hearing impaired and the disabled in general.
This call ought to be embraced by all Ghanaians to help solve the challenge and save the lives of many others like Mr. Mensah’s.