Ontario Disabilities Act: It's so last century

At the end of this month, employers with more than 20 workers will be required to train their staff to better serve Ontarians with disabilities. These businesses will also be required to provide better services for them.
 

The Ontario government has provided a helpful document for businesses, which can be found by following this link.

I decided to check it out to see what's in it for people with hearing loss.

Let's just say, I was not impressed. The suggestions are so last century.

Here, verbatim, are the suggestions....

People who have hearing loss

People who have hearing loss may be Deaf, oral deaf, deafened or hard of hearing. These are terms used to describe
different levels of hearing and/or the way a person’s hearing was diminished or lost.

Tips:

• Attract the customer’s attention before speaking. Try a gentle touch on the shoulder or wave
  of your hand.
• Make sure you are in a well-lit area where your customer can see your face and read your lips.
• If your customer uses a hearing aid, reduce background noise or move to a quieter area.
• If necessary, ask if another method of communicating would be easier (for example, using a pen and paper).

Oh, come on.
First of all, you can't assume someone who has hearing loss is going to come up to a bank teller or a triage nurse or a kiosk and volunteer the information that they are hard of hearing or wearing hearing aids. While people with hearing loss are becoming more vocal, thanks to the efforts of support organizations like the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association (CHHA), a lot of people are embarrassed because they can't hear, or they don't want to draw attention to themselves.
So having a person waving in their faces or taking them to what amounts to a "special room" isn't going to cut it.
It is true that, by reducing noise, a person with hearing aids will be able to hear someone. But the world simply doesn't work that way. Shutting down the Muzak isn't going to help. It will just leave you with grumpy employees.
Besides, in many work places or service areas, there are fans for air circulation. There are also a lot of people talking. Waving in a person's face or offering them a pen and paper (reminding me of a Dickens' novel) is just going to make a person with hearing loss mad.
Installing assistive devices will go a long way toward helping businesses better serve their customers with hearing loss. Hearing loops are inexpensive and can cut through the background noises that irritate people with hearing loss, and yet, they are only being used in churches and a few banks right now. Why is that?
A wheelchair ramp, larger spaces in restaurants, all of these things are now being demanded by people with disabilities. Why are people with hearing loss being forced to suffer in silence?
Because nobody is telling people with hearing loss that there are tools to help them, tools they should be demanding.
The government would do well to encourage businesses, hospitals and other institutions, as well as transportation services, to install hearing loops. At the same time, hearing professionals have a job to do in educating consumers with hearing loss about the kinds of tools that are available to help them hear better.
I heard of one situation this week of a man who was excited to learn that he could have a loop installed in his home so he could finally hear his television. Unfortunately, when he contacted his audiologist, he was told he'd bought a hearing aid without a T-Coil, the little device that, when turned on, will allow a person to hear with the benefit of a looping system.
He was never told when he bought the expensive hearing aids that, in effect, the audiologist had cut him off from an opportunity to hear better.
The man was in tears.
Frankly, I was appalled when I heard this story especially because the man said he would have bought a T-Coil equipped aid if he knew it existed.
It's important to start a real conversation on hearing loss. For five decades, Europeans have been able to take cabs, ride subways and go to museums because the governments had the forethought to encourage the use of hearing loops.
Unfortunately, they've never caught on in Canada or the United States.
Only in recent times have hearing advocates begun to demand help for the more than one in seven people with hearing loss.
We need to find ways to bring Canadians with hearing loss into the conversation.
Don't hand them a pen and paper, as the government document suggests.
It's just insulting.

A short demonstration in a library....