"Equality of interpreting services"

Patient: My story is about having to go to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast for a planned operation on the side of my neck. I’d need to be in hospital for between 3 and 4 nights. It was all organised, they told me they would arrange interpreters, that was great and I was happy that I knew there would be an interpreter for me the whole time. I arrived on the Tuesday and the surgery was due on Wednesday morning. They weren’t sure how long I would be in hospital for, whether it would be until Thursday or Friday as it depended on the outcome of the surgery.

When we got to the hospital, there was an interpreter on arrival. I went in with my wife and daughter, she lives in London and she came in to support me, I then spoke to the interpreter and said I take it you’re in everyday I am here for? (3 or 4 days). The interpreter said they were only booked for that one appointment, so I asked what happened over the next few days - they said they didn’t know, so, I started to get worried because I knew I was going to need an interpreter every day I was in, it was serious treatment, so the interpreter said this patient is going to need an interpreter, it was a nurse they spoke to, the nurse was quite young and we were in the middle of a nurses strike at the time, the nurse said something about not being able to afford an interpreter for all these days, our interpreter said that they’ll need to. A senior member of staff came over in a red uniform, we said you need to book this before 5pm while the interpreter office is still open, so they rang through, to try and book an interpreter, but we were left not knowing what would happen.

Patient’s wife: I went home very worried about what would happen when I left that evening - we were both worried about whether or not there would be an interpreter the next day.

The surgery was booked for 8am, but there was no interpreter in sight, so surgery was delayed until 10am. My husband started to get anxious as there had been a lot of pressure to go ahead with this surgery and get it done because it was needed and very important.

Then, the interpreter arrived at 10am to consent to the surgery but they were only booked until 1pm with no one booked for him waking up in recovery, so we were anxious the whole way through about who will communicate with him after surgery, what will happen, will someone else come through?

Patient: That interpreter told me there wouldn’t be an interpreter there for waking up in recovery and I would be waking up with no communication support. My daughter can sign a bit, so I asked if she can help me when I wake up from surgery. I think my daughter naively thought that would be okay. I was due to come out of surgery about 2pm, so – my daughter came down and I woke up in recovery and a doctor came over and when they looked at my situation the doctor spoke to my daughter and said, tell your dad to raise your hands in the air, but I couldn’t, my limbs weren’t working properly, my daughter saw this, and told my doctor and the doctor said this isn’t good you need her to leave out of the recovery room to get her away from what was going on here because something wasn’t right.

So, then the doctor carried out some other procedures, it all went a bit dramatic around me and I don’t know what happened so I was just lying there, she was put out the room, but she was my daughter not an interpreter. There was a blockage of blood in my body and I needed a stent. So, then the doctor brought my daughter back in and said ask your dad to raise his hands now but I actually had a worse reaction at that point, my body became paralysed even worse than before, she started to cry and was in floods of tears not knowing what was going on and she was asked to go out of the room again as they tried to re-insert the stent again going through four different attempts to do this, it was high drama, the doctor asked her to come back in again and ask me to raise my hands again and I could which was good for me because my body was responding now, but my daughter was in floods of tears because of all of this, then I had to be rushed for an MRI to check my brain due to lack of oxygen, they were rushing me out the room to get an MRI done quickly. Everything was done in a bit of a panic, they realised there was no damage done. But, there should have been an interpreter the whole way through with me including the MRI, it shouldn’t have been my daughter it should have been an interpreter. My daughter seeing me knowing I might have been brain damaged was difficult. A doctor told my daughter there had been no brain damage, and the surgeon said that it was a very rare occurrence, and that it was the first time in 20 years that he had seen this happening.

Patient’s wife: The details around what was going on at that point are still quite unclear because of the lack of clear communication, e.g. we are unsure if it was 20 years exactly.

Patient: I was then put into the recovery room for 24 hours with a nurse coming in doing regular observations and checking my limbs working, with no interpreter in sight the entire time I was there. My daughter came back down and she did her best to try and tell me what they were saying, but it shouldn’t have been her, it should have been an interpreter. Eventually I was put back on a ward, my wife and daughter were allowed to see me but still no interpreter.

Eventually one was brought in on the Thursday morning, it was the first time one came back again, they were meant to come in for a consultation with the doctor and the were booked from 10am-12pm but the doctor wasn’t available at that time and so we didn’t get to talk to the doctor because the interpreter had to leave and the doctor was not available in these short 2 hours.

Patient’s wife: While my husband was in the recovery room there were 3 spoken language interpreters in that area and it broke my heart to see that if you have a spoken language you get an interpreter, but for a deaf person, we don’t get one, and we felt so badly treated, it was heart breaking to see that happening.

Patient: We are so grateful to our daughter for doing what she could but this had a massive impact on her. She was very upset. She is back in London now and she had to take a week off work because she was so distressed by what she experienced. Seeing that happening to me, she couldn’t go back into work. And I think what I want to say is I am still in recovery, I have a long way to go, but this thing around booking interpreters has been very difficult and disappointing and has really knocked our confidence in the services that we attend.

Patient’s wife: Trying to get to see or speak to a GP or a doctor at a hospital isn’t easy and I want to have more email contact opportunities, because at this point in time we are having to ask for things and go in in person instead. I think a lot of communication systems need to be changed for us deaf people to get better access in the future.

Patient: Just before the surgery happened, I was left lying there, at that time the doctor was around and wanted to talk to me, and not having an interpreter booked, honestly I can’t explain what that felt like, having all these professionals standing around me waiting for surgery and not being able to communicate with them. When letters come out they ask if you need an interpreter and we asked for one and we knew it was a couple of days in advance so we actually drove to the hospital and tried to find the office, because we didn’t trust them to book an interpreter for us, so we handed a letter into them and they said we will make sure we book an interpreter because know you’re in for a few days and they said they would sort it out. We went into the hospital especially to make sure an interpreter would be booked and then look what happened.

The doctor is lovely, the doctors themselves are really lovely. The medical staff and everyone treated me really well. But I should have had an interpreter with me 24/7 because it was so serious, we just wanted this to go smoothly and we want this to be improved for the future. There should have been interpreters there.

Video of story in BSL 

This is a translation by a BSL translator 

https://vimeo.com/819470342

Video of story in ISL 

This is a translation by an ISL translator 

https://vimeo.com/819470417