GOVERNMENTPennsylvania hospitals agree to provide sign language interpretersSettlements are similar to earlier pacts in Maine and Utah and could have implications for physicians.By Tanya Albert, amednews staff. Sept. 15, 2003. Physician practices should have a plan in place for providing sign language interpretation if a hearing-impaired patient comes in for care. That's the message of recent settlement agreements reached by two Pennsylvania hospitals. Although the court cases involve hospitals, the same rules could just as easily apply to physician offices that accept payment from government programs, said Gerard K. Schrom, the Media, Pa., attorney who represented the woman who filed the lawsuits.
In the settlements, Chester County Hospital in West Chester, Pa., and York Hospital in York, Pa., agreed to make adequate interpreter services available in a timely fashion for patients who are deaf or hearing impaired. Other terms of the agreements were not disclosed. The cases were handled in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania and the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. The changes stem from lawsuits that Beverly Ann Smanyk filed on behalf of herself and her now-deceased father, Washington B. Fry Sr. She charged that they weren't offered adequate interpreter services when Fry went to the hospitals on separate occasions in 2000 to be treated for congestive heart failure and a stroke. Both father and daughter are deaf, and sound amplifications don't help them communicate. But both are fluent in American sign language. Court records show that Smanyk said the hospitals didn't fulfill numerous requests for sign language interpreter services that would have allowed her and her father to better communicate with the hospital staff and better make decisions regarding her father's health care. Instead, they communicated with gestures or written notes, even though Fry was visually impaired, according to the lawsuit. At one hospital, when Fry pushed the call button by his bed, the staff contacted him by voice through an intercom system that he could not hear instead of visiting the room to see what he needed, according to court records. Smanyk charged that the hospitals violated the federal Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. "You make reasonable accommodations to those who are disabled by installing ramps and making changes to the bathrooms," Schrom said. "In this case, it means having an interpreter available." A York Hospital spokesman said the hospital's policy is not to comment on lawsuits or settlements. Chester County Hospital spokeswoman Colleen Leonard Leyden said the hospital has always notified patients about its policies for services available to the hearing impaired. The hospital had provided patients with sign interpreters, sound amplifiers and other devices at the time of care, she added. Staff members are now informing patients of these services at the point of access, such as the emergency department, appointment scheduling or admissions. The hospital staff has been educated about the new policy, she said. The settlement, Schrom said, is the first in a Pennsylvania federal court. But it is similar to an earlier settlement agreement in Utah and an earlier consent decree in Maine. In both cases, hospitals were sued. The arrangements hospitals and physicians need to have in place are similar to those required for patients who speak foreign languages. Schrom suggests physicians:
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:Close casesThe settlements in the cases brought by Beverly Ann Smanyk against two Pennsylvania hospitals were not publicly disclosed. But agreements in two earlier cases regarding sign language interpreters for hearing-impaired patients were made public.
Copyright 2003 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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