As a former hospital administrator, I have some concerns about health care barriers. I consider myself reasonably educated and intelligent, as well as articulate and literate, but I am not a physician; I am an engineer. If I have had barriers and difficulties accessing health care services using my intelligence and clear speech, how much hope is reasonable for deaf people with limited familiarity with health care systems and difficulty communicating to hearing people? In fact, I have received through personal acquaintance and email a number of accounts of bad health care services. My preliminary research indicates that deaf people (not just deafened people but deaf people of all sorts) have lower health status than non-deaf people, i.e., they aren't enjoying the same healthy quality of life. This stands to reason when you consider how few public health programs are completely accessible both culturally and linguistically to deaf people, and the inaccurate assumption that all deaf people can communicate with sign language (when indeed deafened people are the majority among deaf adults and many do not—yet—sign).
Therefore the articles in this section relate to health access and barriers. Some of the material pertains to rehabilitation related to acquired deafness, while other material pertains to health in the broad sense and the difficulty we have accessing it due to inability to hear.
Last modified 28 July 2002