I Wish There Were More Education On How to Help Deaf Patients Feel Safe

Sleeping in a hospital as a Deaf person is terrifying… at least when I’m alone.

I wake up to someone standing overhead or scanning my wrist band and didn’t know they came in. I’ve learned how to see the IV pole beeping or get on without the auditory-only manner of calling a nurse… but it feels, to me, like sleeping with one eye open.

I see a light beeping overhead in the hallway, signaling some sort of major alert… And I wonder if it’s one I’d ever know, or if I’d somehow be left behind in (possibly metaphoric) flames.

I believe in nurses more than that, of course, but it’s a wrenched example. I don’t like waking up to someone in my room when I didn’t know they entered (not healthcare’s fault)… so I never fully sleep instead.

Still, I wish there were more education on how to help Deaf patients feel safe… and it’s not just having interpreters (because they can’t always stay overnight and aren’t always a perfect fit for the patient).

And it’s not just hearing (or lack thereof) that makes the healing hard.

We need a system for state of mind.

Did the patient get any sleep last night or did they get admitted at 3 AM and therefore have been awake for over 24 when you talk to them in hyper speed at 5 AM?

Were they fast asleep from heavy medications when you woke them up and thus haven’t had time to clear the double vision that makes reading your lips or seeing an interpreted hands possible?

Where is a patient’s mind when you enter the room and wake them up, 4 paragraphs deep?

Where is their ability or culture or need to understand?

Do you consider slowing down?… A prompt of some kind that allows us to know a physician is coming, so we can get “un-high” fast?… Something?

Everyone is under staffed so it doesn’t even need to be a “human prompt”. Maybe, just a blinking light or a vibrato of the bed that is hit when rounds begin so a patient can attempt to wake up and prepare.

I don’t sleep when in hospital because I dislike the feeling of edge and threat inside my body when sleeping alone… And that’s something maybe only Deaf patients can perceive; Our own physical feeling that occurs when one sense is “down” so the others heighten.

Or maybe… maybe it’s all of us?

I don’t like the feeling, sure…. But I mostly hate watching a doctor leave the room and realizing I was only partially conscious for the entire exchange.

** These thoughts and this footage was 2 weeks ago **

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