Deaf people and health care

Dr Jemina Napier signs.

Two academics from Macquarie University’s Department of Linguistics are undertaking a project that will help Deaf people communicate with their GPs, dentists and medical specialists.

“Until recently Deaf people found it really hard to get access to interpreters for medical appointments,” says Dr Jemina Napier, who is working on the project with Associate Professor Trevor Johnston. “Now that the government has established a booking service to provide Auslan (Australian Sign Language) interpreters in medical situations, the interpreters themselves will need to develop their skills in medical technology.”

SignBank

To facilitate this, Johnston is developing SignBank, an Auslan dictionary that can be accessed at www.auslan.org.au This will supplement print and CD-ROM dictionaries already available. Deaf students and their parents, sign language interpreters, teachers and Auslan students are all invited to help build up this vibrant, changing language through suggestions, testing and feedback.

“We want people to use it as a live resource,” says Napier. “We’ll be adding terms that people might never have encountered.”

There are already plans for expansion. When Deaf people and their interpreters are about to seek health advice, they could view explanations of terminology in English, with Auslan video clips, to familiarise themselves with useful new signs.

Interpreter training

Development of the website will proceed alongside specialist translator training at Macquarie on how doctors talk and interact with patients. Issues of power and control of the situation are among sensitive psychological issues that will be covered. A specialist Medical Interpreting unit will also soon be offered as part of the Postgraduate Diploma in Auslan Interpreting.

At present, demand for interpreters with Auslan skills far outstrips supply. To take one of the postgraduate courses Macquarie offers, potential students need a degree in linguistics, a language or related field (such as English), plus fluency in Auslan, which can be learnt at TAFE or community colleges.

“Students need bilingual fluency as well as basic experience as an interpreter,” says Napier. “Most of our programs are targeted for professionals who want to extend skills related to their work.”

Supplementing such specialist work, Macquarie provides a friendly and supportive environment for Deaf students in any department. On request, interpreters and note-takers can be provided for students at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

In the next 10 years, Napier and Johnston would like to see better coordination between training and service providers, to identify and meet needs. They keep in touch with overseas colleagues such as those in the United States, where a professional association for sign language interpreters was established in the 1960s.

“In future, I’d like to see a nationally-recognised centre for sign language interpreting and research in Australia,” says Napier.   

For further information, and to obtain a copy of Napier and Johnston’s recent conference presentation, Deaf people and health care discourse: a linguistic perspective, contact jnapier@ling.mq.edu.au or trevor.johnston@ling.mq.edu.au. The Department of Linguistics website can be viewed at www.ling.mq.edu.au

More Health stories here