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....

Ontario Disabilities Act: Are you being served?

By January 1, 2015, businesses and not-for-profit organizations with more than 20 employees will be required by the Ontario government to provide accessible customer service and train their staff on how to serve people with disabilities.

That means that a dance studio must be able to provide information materials in an accessible format like a website, not just on paper, so that clients who have vision loss can read them with screen readers. It also means that a clothing store must either provide fitting rooms to accommodate wheelchairs, or provide an exemption to a no return policy if their wheelchair bound customers cannot try the clothes on beforehand.

It makes sense that, finally, in this modern age, businesses will be required to find better ways to serve the more than 1 in 7 persons with a disability in this province. It also makes sense from a business standpoint considering that ageing Ontarians and people with disabilities represent 40% of total income in Ontario. That's worth $536 billion to the Ontario economy, according to our government.

And yet, people who suffer from hearing loss continue to be the silent minority.

While the new government directive encourages the use of assistive devices -- pieces of equipment that a person with a disability can use to help them in their daily living -- it does not go far enough for people with hearing loss, many of whom have difficulty negotiating the world with hearing aids alone.

Assistive devices such as hearing loops are in use only in a small corner of our society, in churches mainly, but not in businesses, government service centres, hotels, transit or recreation facilities. (There are some exceptions, such as schools which utilize expensive FM systems which use microphones and transmitters to connect teacher and student.)

Nor are they in use in hospitals, conference rooms or many seniors' facilities. Nor are they offered as an "add-on" in new building construction.

And yet, hearing loops provide a cost-effective solution to many of the difficulties faced by people with hearing loss.

What are hearing loops?

Put simply, a hearing loop is a system of wires and microphones that are placed in a room or a designated area. People who wear hearing aids simply turn on a telecoil in their hearing aids or cochlear implants and can hear most of the sounds in the room just as a person with normal hearing does. (They don't work for everybody, but they do provide significant improvement in a person's hearing in a noise environment.)

Hearing loops are enormously popular in Europe where, for more than five decades, they have been installed in museums, taxicabs, even the London underground. And yet, they are rarely used in North America.

Recently, New York City has begun to encourage business to use hearing loops and now they are in all NYC taxi cabs. Even Yankee Stadium is looped!

If they are so effective, why aren't they becoming more available in Canada?

Part of the problem is that there is a general lack of awareness about hearing loops and what they can do to improve the quality of life and service for people with hearing loss. Right now, they are used only in churches and by some consumers who order them over the Internet from companies in Europe. There is also a lack of installers in Canada who are qualified and knowledgeable about microphone placement. Finally, there is a lack of buy-in from audiologists and hearing instruments professionals to promote their use. Some consumers report frustration that audiologists don't even bother to turn on the telecoil, which virtually renders hearing aids useless for use with hearing loops.

What is confounding is that hearing loops are very inexpensive, costing between $3,000 and $5,000 for a large conference room, as an example. Portable loops for use in homes, offices and cars cost less than $1,000 installed!

Those numbers are much cheaper than building wheelchair ramps and new dressing rooms.

And yet, such a simple fix is being ignored instead of being included in a business's accessibility plan.

There are a number of things that need to happen in Ontario in my opinion.

First, consumers must begin to demand these services from governments and businesses. They need to walk into their banks, hospitals, government kiosks and recreational facilities and ask why they are not being properly served. They need to stand up for their rights, under the Disabilities Act. Simply put, they need to start a dialogue.

As for businesses, they need to realize that installing hearing loops is good for business. In the U.S., where the Loop America campaign is in full swing, businesses are encouraged to become more hearing friendly and carry the sticker below, which indicates that their needs are being met.

If businesses, governments, hearing providers and consumers become engage, the change would be nothing short of miraculous.

It means a person with hearing loss could speak to the bank teller, ride public transit and hear the driver or hear their spouse while driving in a car equipped with a portable looping device. And it means that a person with hearing loss could talk to the nurse in emergency and save precious time.

Most importantly, if hearing loops were installed in more places, it would give people with hearing loss back a sense of normal.

If you would like to learn more about hearing loops, visit this site.

Remember, in Ontario, hearing loops are no longer a privilege, they are a right.