The NHS have been called upon by deaf people in Nottingham when many of them were left with broken hearing aids for days.
One patient, Jennie Lloyd, 28, of West Brightford is deaf and has been using hearing aids since she was just three years old.
Jennie regularly visits the department at Ropewalk House in the city centre; however has spoken about the service becoming increasingly worse for patients, who have been left without a hearing aid, with others struggling to make their needs and requirements known to the staff members.
Many patients are said to struggle to be able to book an appointment with the staff who don’t seem to understand them. Patients have said they would much prefer to go back to the drop-in service that was scrapped in 2005.
“We used to be able to just pop into the Ropewalk whenever our hearing aids broke, but that has been taken away and now have to make an appointment,” said Jennie.
“For me this is distressing as I work at the QMC and go on the wards for long periods of time so am surrounded by staff, patients and visitors so desperately need my hearing aid.” At present the service does not have a hearing aid repair system over the weekend, which has caused many problems in the past, particularly over bank holiday weekends.
Nottingham University Hospitals Trust (NUH) – who provide the service – have commented that there is no facility in place to repair hearing aids at the weekend but that they have an outpatients’ service which operates extended hours between 8am-6pm Monday-Friday.
Since the introduction of digital hearing aids in 2005, the hearing aid does take longer to repair. And with the centre dealing with 22,000 patients each year, the appointments are now the only way that their staff member’s can deal with repairs.
Deaf patients have said they have struggled to tell the staff what it is they need. Jenny, when she last visited Ropewalk, said that no one could understand her.
“It was such a struggle to get through reception trying to inform them who I was and what I was there for,” she said.
“They didn’t appear to have any deaf awareness and not one member of staff knew any sign language.”
The NUH said that only a small proportion of people they see actually use sign language and it would be inappropriate for staff member’s to act as translators unless they are qualified to appropriate BSL level. He said that staff receive deaf awareness training.
William Brassington, head of service at Ropewalk House, said, “This is the first we have heard of concerns from a patient about our services.
“We would be happy to discuss concerns with this lady directly. We se over 57,000 patients a year at Ropewalk House and the vast majority are happy with the services they receive.”
The NUH have announced that they will be integrating a large screen in the waiting area as well as self check in stations; however there are patients that are visually impaired which means their names will still need to be called.
