WATCH: Family of deaf man feel let down after Trust fail to provide interpreter

Q Radio News

The South Eastern Health Trust has apologised to the family of a man from County Antrim for not providing a sign language interpreter while he was in their care.

Thomas Carson's daughter, had to tell her father he was terminally ill - 3 days before he died in 2016.

The family has been paid 7,000 pounds without admission of liability, after taking a case through the Equality Commission.

Thomas's daughter, Jillian has told Q Radio both her parents are deaf and little effort was made.

Both the late Thomas Carson and his wife Mary have always used British Sign Language as their first language, and it's through that language their daughter Jillian communicates with them.

The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland supported Jillian and her mother to bring a case under the Disability Discrimination Act over the Trust's failure to provide interpretation services.

"The lack of a qualified sign language interpreter to communicate with my father and mother during his last days added greatly to the ordeal for all of us," Jillian Shanks said. "As a family it was inevitably a most difficult time, but the lack of this key support made it worse. At one stage a picture board was used to try and communicate with my father – that was humiliating and simply not appropriate in the circumstances."

"The hospital knew that both my husband and I were deaf and they should have followed their own policy and ensured that we had an interpreter at such a critical time," Mary Carson said. "We just hope that this will mean that no other family have to face such a problem."

The family of a deaf man have received £7000 from the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust after he wasn’t provided with an interpreter while in hospital. @davidhunter7 met the Shanks family to hear their story. pic.twitter.com/EkChlhTiUn

— Hannah Spratt (@Radio_Han) March 23, 2018

 
Anne McKernan, Director of Legal Services, Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, welcomed the fact that the Trust has now taken steps, on the ward concerned, to highlight the importance of providing independent interpreters for patients who need them. "The Trust's failure to implement the policies they already had in place meant that an additional degree of unnecessary distress and hurt was caused to this family. It could and should have been avoided," she said. 

 
In Northern Ireland, around 2500 deaf people use British Sign Language, and more than four thousand people communicate through it. 

For people like the Carson family, this is their first language, and the lack of an interpreter placed a huge additional burden on them at a most difficult time in their lives," Anne McKernan said. "The Trust has undertaken to liaise with the Commission in respect of its training and to ensure all its staff are aware of their policy on interpreters."