Great News!!

Emergency medical interpreting services for nights and weekends continues!!

A collaborative effort by menbers of the Deaf Community, the Office of Protection and Advocacy (OPA), the Connecticut Hospital Association (CHA), Family Services Woodfield (FSW), the Connecticut Commission on the Deaf and Hearing Impaired (CDHI), and the Connecticut Chapter of the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (CRID), has succeeded in re-establishing the hospital emergency interpreting service program.  Deaf Citizens can now feel comforted.  Sign Language  Interpreters will be dispatched to hospital emergencies whenever possible on nights, weekends and during holidays, 24/7.

How it works:

It works pretty much like it has in the past!

A Deaf patient in a hospital emergency room.....

The hospital may try "Video Relay Interpreting (VRI)"  for information collection (forms and paperwork) and early preparation, or triage, until an interpreter arrives.

Protocol I:

The hospital will call 211 (or CDHI and CDHI will refer to 211).

211 will check the FSW list.

211 will call and dispatch the available FSW "on-call" interpreter to the hospital.

Protocol II:

If no FSW interpreter is available, 211 will tell the hospital to  call (860) 231-7623, the CDHI emergency interpreting telephone number.

The hospital will call the CDHI emergency interpreting number.  The CDHI answering service will contact CDHI Coordinators.  CDHI Coordinators will call the hospital for details.  The Coordinators will try to locate an available interpreter and dispatch the interpreter to the hospital.

Protocol III:

If no CDHI interpreter is avaialble, CDHI Coordinators will encourage the hospital to write a brief note to the patient stating:  "No FSW interpreter, no CDHI interpreter available now.  Still trying.  Time don't know."

The hospital should then call private hospital resources for interpreter(s).  If still no interpreters, start over with Protocol I and then Protocol II.