Deaf woman sues to get interpreter at delivery
Bethesda East wants video-conferencing equipment instead.
BOYNTON BEACH — Like many pregnant women, Margaret Weiss worries about all the things that could go wrong when she delivers her second child next month.
Unlike most, Weiss isn’t worried solely about the inescapable pain or unexpected medical complications. The 30-year-old Boynton Beach woman also worries she won’t be able to understand simple instructions like “Push,” much less be able to respond if doctors need to explain something complex or possibly life threatening. Weiss is deaf. For months, she has pleaded with officials at Bethesda Hospital East to provide a sign language interpreter to make sure she and her deaf boyfriend understand what’s happening when she brings their new daughter into the world. The officials have refused.
Instead, in what Weiss’ attorneys call a national first, Bethesda officials say they will only provide video-conferencing equipment. They will hook up a camera and a
TV monitor that will allow an interpreter at a remote location to translate what doctors and nurses are saying into sign language and what Weiss is signing into English.
Hospital attorney John Heffling disputes the notion that the video-conferencing technology has never been used during a delivery. The hospital’s plan, he said, is sound and complies with federal laws that require hospitals to accommodate the needs of the deaf.
“There is no overwhelming evidence that the (video equipment) is not going to provide effective communication,” he has said.
Weiss and other deaf people who have used the Internet-based system disagree. They say: It crashes. The image is sometimes blurry. It simply isn’t suited for a situation that can become as chaotic as childbirth.
“What if it went out? I’d be screaming. I’d be crazy,” Weiss said through an interpreter. “Nobody watches TV while they’re giving birth. That’s not what you do.”
Her concerns, which have spawned two lawsuits now pending in U.S. District Court in West Palm Beach, aren’t new.
In the past 10 years, both Wellington Regional Medical Center and Bethesda have been sued by deaf patients, who claimed they were denied interpreters, making a hospital stay a scary and frustrating experience. Both hospitals settled those lawsuits without admitting wrongdoing.
Most hospitals in Palm Beach County provide appropriate options for the estimated 16,000 county residents who are deaf and another 200,000 who have some hearing loss, said June McMahon, vice president of the Florida Association of the Deaf and a member of Deaf & Hearing Resources of Palm Beach County.
Bethesda, she said, is an outlier. Earlier this month, the year-old retired teacher who was born deaf went to Bethesda for a colonoscopy. She said it took staff 45 minutes to get the video equipment to work, and when it finally did, the screen kept freezing. Finally, she said, she gave up.
“This was absolutely ridiculous,” she said, adding that she can’t imagine using it during childbirth.
“I like that hospital. It’s close to my house. But communication is an issue,” she said through an interpreter.
That is the situation confronting Weiss.
When she gave birth to her daughter, Odelia, in 2014, she wanted to go to Bethesda, which is about 1½ miles from her home. But, when they wouldn’t provide an interpreter, she went to West Boca Medical Center. An interpreter there helped her through labor and during her three-day hospital stay.
Problems arose when Odelia got fluid in her lungs during the delivery and remained hospitalized for 2½ weeks. Since she doesn’t drive, Weiss had to find rides to the hospital 20 miles from her home.
“My biggest fear is to have to go back and forth to West Boca to visit my baby,” she said.
Heffling declined to comment about Weiss’ claims, as did hospital officials. But, during a court hearing earlier this month, he said the hospital isn’t heartless. If the equipment doesn’t work, “We’ll get an on-site interpreter,” he said.
By then, Weiss’ attorneys said, it might be too late.
Weiss attorney Clara Smit bristles at the hospital’s stance. It is immoral. It’s unconscionable.” Most importantly, she said, it’s untested.
“There is no other hospital in the United States who has ever attempted to use (video equipment) for a deaf patient during a labor or delivery,” she told U.S. Magistrate James Hopkins this month. “And the reason for that is because it’s just beyond belief that any hospital would require a deaf person to do so.”
While acknowledging he couldn’t find evidence such a case has ever been litigated, Heffling said that doesn’t mean video equipment hasn’t been used in childbirth. He quoted a doctor who owns a company that sells the equipment. During a deposition, the
ly