I am usually greeted with the sound of birdsong first thing
in the morning in the spring. This year I couldn’t hear the birds. Charles had to repeat himself often to me, and
I couldn’t hear him open the door when he came home from work when I was
sitting in the living room just a small distance away.
For the past few months, my ears have been full of wax
and it has affected my hearing. I avoided going to the doctor as long as I
could, but I went in and had my ears syringed yesterday.
A hearing-centric culture creates barriers for the D/deaf
and the Hard of Hearing. I have had a chance over these last few months of
hearing loss to experience just a small sample of these barriers.
According to the Canadian
Hard of Hearing Association, one out of ten Canadians, four million people,
have hearing loss.
I have had a difficult time hearing people when they are
wearing masks. I had to mail a few packages and when I went to the post office,
the clerk had to repeat his question a few times because the mask he was
wearing muffled his voice. I felt self-conscious about needing him to repeat
his words and at one point, I just went along with whatever he said because I
was too shy to ask him to repeat again.
There have been some initiatives to create clear masks
but these are not easily available or promoted by public health authorities.
I have been using close captioning for films I watch alone
on our Microsoft Surface tablet. Sometimes the captions are great, but other
times, they are quite far out. I have been fascinated with the myriad ways
sounds are described. According to the Canadian
Association for the Deaf, video programming — whether it is television
programming, movies, videotapes/DVDs, webcasts, or other technology — is not
fully accessible to Deaf people.
We took bus and train and bus to the medical clinic where
our family doctor practices. The OC Transpo announcements are duplicated on the
platform and on the train, but they are not in sync and are garbled. I didn’t
even bother to try to listen to these announcements.
Other than mentioning that deaf people can have service
animals on OC Transpo transit, I saw no indication any where in OC Transpo’s accessibility policies that addresses D/deaf and Hard of Hearing riders. When I took transit
regularly, I found that the system on buses announcing stops was working
intermittently, and wasn’t always reliable. During the lockdown, I have used
transit only twice and in both cases, the system was working.
There’s still some wax build up but I’m hearing much
better now after the syringe treatment. I will have to use warm olive oil in my
ears to soften the wax, and will return every two weeks to the doctor’s for
more syringing if the wax is not eliminated.
In the meantime I will continue to learn more about both
the barriers to the D/deaf and the Hard of Hearing and how they navigate and
understand the world. I will read works by D/deaf and Hard of Hearing writers.
Ilya Kaminski, from
Deaf Republic
I am mindful of my privilege as someone who hasn’t had to
deal with the barriers facing the D/deaf and hard of hearing community on a
regular basis.
Here is a list of Covid-19
resources for D/deaf, Deafblind and Hard of Hearing Canadians created by
the Canadian Association for the Deaf.
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