Five deaf patients OK’d to sue Bethesda Hospital, court says

WEST PALM BEACH — In a victory for deaf people, a federal appeals court has paved the way for five Boynton Beach area residents to sue Bethesda Hospital for not taking steps to assure they understood what was happening to them when they got medical treatment.

While the decision directly affects those who sued the hospital, last week’s ruling by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has far-reaching impacts, said Matthew Dietz, a disability rights attorney who represents the elderly patients and the Florida Association for the Deaf in the long-running lawsuit.

In its decision, the Atlanta-based appeals court clarified what Dietz called “a murky” area of the law that has confounded the deaf when they tried to force hospitals to make sure they understand what doctors and nurses are saying.

As a result, five of the nine patients who filed suit can seek damages from the hospital. The association and one of the patients can seek an injunction that would require the hospital to assure the needs of the deaf are met, said Dietz, who filed the lawsuit with attorney Clara Smits.

In the lawsuit, patients described how scared and confused they were when doc tors and nurses used gestures or passed notes to them to explain medical procedures.

The medical professionals resorted to such methods because of the failure of a video system the hospital uses to communicate with the deaf. Instead of hiring sign language interpreters to come to the hospital, Bethesda uses a service where interpreters at remote locations are beamed onto a TV screen.

But , pat i e nt s s a i d, t he image is often blurry. Or, they said, the screen goes blank. Sometimes, medical professionals didn’t know how to operate it.

When U.S. District Judge Daniel Hurley threw out the lawsuit last year, he ruled that nurses weren’t “officials” under the 44-yearold Americ ans With Di sabilities Act. However, the appeals court said, since nurses stood between the deaf patients and the interpreters the patients wanted, they could be considered officials.

But, it said, the patients have to make their needs clear. If they don’t tell the nurses explicitly that they need an interpreter, the hospital can’t be sued for not providing one.

Since they didn’t compl ai n, t he c l ai ms of f our of the nine patients were rejected.

“It gives guidance so people who are deaf know who to complain to and that they have to complain,” Dietz said.

It is likely the lawsuit will be settled, he said. A similar one against Bethesda was settled in 2006 but resurfaced when the hospital began using the video system.