Nearly 250 Primary Care professionals from the Lanzarote Health Area, attached to the Ministry of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands, have participated in awareness workshops for the care of deaf people in health centers and have received basic training in Spanish Sign Language.
The initiative is being developed in collaboration with the Association of Deaf People of Arrecife and Lanzarote (APSAL) and is part of the strategy to humanize health care in order to bring health services closer to deaf people through communication.
The workshops, given by members of APSAL, offered theoretical information and dynamic group sessions and taught basic concepts of sign language related to health and health care, such as pain, allergy, cholesterol, asthma, blood and others such as analysis, colonoscopy, X-ray, surgery, etc.
The aim is to facilitate care for deaf people and improve communication between patients and staff in health centers.
In total, seven training sessions have been held and professionals from all basic health areas of Lanzarote have participated, from different categories such as orderlies, administrative staff, social workers, nurses and family doctors.
The courses try to raise awareness among staff and develop communication skills aimed at the accessibility of the deaf community in the health field. For its part, APSAL has produced summary teaching material with all this vocabulary for health center professionals, so that they now have a valuable resource to turn to and consult when they need it.
Skills to promote sensitive and effective treatment
The workshops explain to Primary Care professionals how to address patients with hearing disabilities in order to obtain the necessary information and care for them adequately. This aspect is especially important for health personnel who acquire tools in these sessions so that the deaf person can express their symptoms in order to make the diagnosis.
This training project also aims to highlight the experiences and difficulties of these patients when they come to their appointment at the health center, while teaching the necessary skills to promote sensitive and effective treatment.
During the course, emphasis is placed on the importance of the patient being accompanied by a Spanish Sign Language interpreter who interprets simultaneously and effectively and acts as a communication bridge between deaf or hard of hearing people and the team of professionals without in any case advising or advising either party.
The director of Primary Care of the Lanzarote Health Services, Aniuska Sutil, is convinced that initiatives such as this contribute to eliminating barriers in the care of deaf people and allows an approach to these patients through basic communication.
