adminBest Masinire
A communication barrier between a Harare doctor and a patient a few years ago led to the tragic death of the patient, Tafara Mago, at the age of 21 and his parents have not come to terms with their loss. Mago, who was born with hearing and speech impairments, tried using improvised sign language to explain the nature of his illness while the doctor, who had no knowledge of sign language, could only guess what Mago was saying.
The result was a wrong diagnosis and wrong prescription, leading to the death of the patient, according to Mago’s parents.
“Tafara fell sick and we took him to a doctor for consultation but the doctor wrongly diagnosed and gave him a wrong prescription which led to his death,” said Tafara’s father.
“The wrong diagnosis was mainly due to the language barrier between the doctor and Tafara as the doctor did not understand sign language while Tafara did not understand what the doctor was saying.”
Mago is among thousands of people with hearing and speech impairments condemned to a life of limited interaction with the greater world due to the language barrier hindering communication.
“There are many cases which could have been prevented, of deaf people who die as a result of wrong diagnosis just because the doctor and the patient are failing to understand each other,” said Barbra Nyangairi, executive director of Deaf Zimbabwe Trust.
“In fact there is a sad case right now of a young lady with hearing impairment who got burnt and they suggested that she be treated through skin grafting yet she doesn’t understand what it is.”
Like their fellow citizens, people with hearing and speech impairments have rights, including rights to education, health, a fair trial, freedom of opinion and expression, political participation, participation in economic and social discourse, access to information and the right to non-discrimination in general.
But if the deaf lack knowledge of the standard sign language variety for the country and the non-deaf (hearing) members of the community do not understand sign language, the deaf are deprived of some of the rights they are entitled to.
Though sign language is recognised as an official language, only a few learning institutions offer it as a subject while there are no official facilities to teach professionals like teachers, lawyers, nurses, doctors and police officers to communicate in sign language.
Although different from conventional languages such as English, Shona or Ndebele, sign language is a language in its own right with dialects and is one of 16 national languages recognised in the Zimbabwe Constitution.
But those with hearing and speech impairments often endure pain and agony trying to register complaints to public officials such as police officers who cannot communicate in sign language.
In cases where people with speech and hearing impairments are wrongly accused of crimes they did not commit, agony is written all over their faces as they struggle explain themselves to the police or lawyers.
“They can communicate, but unfortunately the people they are communicating with do not understand what they are saying,” Nyangairi said.
“Most people with hearing and speech impairments now shun health institutions in their communities because of the language barrier as they are often diagnosed wrongly and prescribed wrong treatment.”
Nyangairi said most health awareness programmes are done through jingles in major languages leaving out those with hearing impairments.
“It is a sad reality that most health awareness campaigns done by the Government target only the non-deaf community, for example, the circumcision and the cervical cancer campaigns,” she said.
Gift Nhau, chief facilitator and board member at the Dr TJ Stamps Trust, laments the lack of learning facilities for the deaf in high schools and colleges.
“There are no special colleges that can accommodate people with speech and hearing impairments such that they get stuck after they finish their ordinary level education.
“Having teachers, nurses, journalists and policemen who understand sign language eases interaction and access to information for people with speech and hearing impairments,” he said
Nyangairi urged authorities to create “a pool of interpreters of sign language in courts, schools, hospitals and clinics” and introduce a law to make it compulsory for public institutions to have sign language interpreters.
“Right now the country expects a person with hearing and speech impairment to hire a sign language interpreter but it’s expensive and many of them cannot afford the cost,” she said.
An estimated 150 000 to 200 000 people in Zimbabwe have hearing and speech impairments and less than 15 people living are on government payroll as teachers at various institutions of the deaf, according to DZT.
Deaf Zimbabwe Trust says problems experienced by deaf students in the country are due to lack of appreciation of the importance of sign language by the general populace.
There are 33 schools in the country that offer specified learning, but only about five offer sign language.
Online Reporter