Deaf mom rips birth without interpreter
Boynton Beach woman says remote interpreter fears became reality.
For weeks, a deaf Boynton Beach woman worried that a videoconferencing system, designed to beam a sign language interpreter into the delivery room on a TV monitor, wouldn’t work and she wouldn’t know what was happening when she gave birth to her second daughter.
Over the weekend, Margaret Weiss’ worst fears were realized, said her lawyer, Matthew Dietz, when the image of the interpreter on the screen blurred, disappeared entirely or was impossible to see as she fought through 12 hours of labor at Bethesda Hospital East.
While the baby and Weiss are healthy and back at home, the 30-year-old described the experience, through an interpreter on Monday, as “awful.”
Hospital attorney John Heffling said he hadn’t yet had a chance to talk to hospital officials about what happened. But, he said, he couldn’t believe it was as horrific as Dietz described. Bethesda nurses and doctors are in the business of treating and caring for patients, not traumatizing them, he said.
But Dietz said the chaos that erupted illustrates why Weiss went to court to force the hospital to provide an interpreter at her bedside instead of leaving her to rely on the computer-based system that he says is prone to malfunction.
“They asserted to a judge that it always works,” he said. “Well, it didn’t work. And they knew she was coming. Don’t you think they would have made sure it worked?”
Dietz filed papers late Sunday, claiming hospital attorneys deliberately misled U.S. Magistrate James Hopkins last week when they argued
that Weiss’ fears were unfounded and persuaded him to reject her request for a live interpreter. Once Weiss has recovered, he said they will seek sanctions against Bethesda.
Hefflffling, however, said the issue is that the deaf community doesn’t want hospitals to be able to decide what constitutes “effffective communication,” which they are required to provide under the Americans With Disabilities Act. Unlike governmental agencies, which are forced to honor a deaf person’s wishes, a private hospital, just like a restaurant, hotel or movie theater, can offffffffffffer alternatives, he said.
“They want the law to be the same as for governmental entities,” he said. “The deaf person wants to choose their mode of communication. That’s what they want. I know that’s what they want. But that’s not what the law says.”
Dietz said he was with Weiss, her mother and the father of her children, who are also deaf, during the early stages of the delivery.
He said that when the video-remote interpreting system — known as VRI — crashed, hospital workers called technicians to fifix it. When efffffffffffforts failed, they decided to use a laptop that they placed on a hospital dining cart.
Contrary to assertions made by Hopkins when he rejected Weiss’ request for a live interpreter, the laptop couldn’t be moved when Weiss rolled on her side in pain or to get an epidural, Dietz said. The speakers weren’t battery-operated so the computer had to remain plugged in.
“You’re at an odd angle,” Weiss said. “The machine can’t accommodate your position.”
Further, to Weiss’ dismay, most of the remote interpreters were male. She did not want strange men seeing her most intimate parts, and additional time was lost trying to get the remote service to provide a female interpreter, Dietz said.
Weiss said she went through a range of emotions. “I was frustrated, angry, nervous, upset,”
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