It was 2023, and I had a really bad ear infection that never went away. I ended up really sick and needing to be in the hospital for about 3 months. Thank God my surgeon requested me to be in this program called “Hospital In the Home” (HITH).

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For those who don’t know what this system is, it is a program that helps people that need to be in hospital for long periods of time that don’t need 24 hour help by hospital staff. So while youa re still admitted int he hospital, you can be in the comfort of your own home, with the nurses, doctors and hospital staff coming into your home as regularly as they need to. They come to check your vitals, health, and to see if you’re improving. You just need someone at home to be able to take care of you while this is all happening. I was in this program for about three months.

 

I first needed a Permanent Intravenous (PICC) line inserted directly to my heart because this ear infection turned into a really bad infection called Golden Staph (Staphylococcus aureus) and it was travelling toward my implant site. All the antibiotics I was being given through the PICC line were not working, so they needed to get the head of Infectious Disease on my case to monitor me closely and assess if the antibiotics they were giving me through the PICC line were working. Unfortunately, it was not working the way they had hoped.  After about 3 months, my surgeon accepted that the infection had now reached my implant site and I needed surgery urgently to get the implant removed (yes, I still had the PICC line in at this point too, and it was not taken out during surgery which was rather uncomfortable after).

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​Being in Hospital In The Home was a good experience overall, but I faced significant challenges as someone who is deaf. The environment when we visited the outpatient unit at the hospital was busy and crowded, with constant background noise, making it extremely difficult to understand the nurses and doctors. I had to repeatedly explain that I am deaf, and at the time, I only had one implant due to swelling from the infection. The frustration of constantly having to repeat myself to various staff—even the same doctors and nurses—eventually led me to stop trying to advocate for my needs. I relied on my parents to communicate important information because I could not depend on the staff to consistently accommodate my deafness.

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​I also found it rather difficult being treated by carers with heavy accents or those wearing masks. While I am grateful we have such a diverse and multicultural healthcare workforce, accents and masks do make understanding instructions or questions more problematic for me. It was clear that with everything going on around me and all the background noise in this environment, it would have been much easier if I were in a quieter space or a separate room. Making space for someone who has hearing loss to have a quieter environment makes all the difference in the world. At one point, someone did this for me, and the number of times that I didn’t need to rely on my parents was absolutely incredible.

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​If the staff had acknowledged my deafness from the start and made consistent efforts to communicate with me directly, I would not have felt so isolated or dependent on my parents for information and instructions.

Being in hospital with staff that did not have much knowledge about deafness was hard, but it doesn't mean that all my experiences were bad. Yes, there are things I wish some of the nurses and doctors would do differently, such as making sure the information about my deafness was passed on during hand-overs, and making sure they face me when speaking to me, and checking that I understood what they were saying, would have made me feel happier. But there have been experiences where doctors and nurses have done things really well in dealing with me as a deaf patient. When the staff slowed down their talking, faced me, made sure other staff knew about my deafness, communicated properly with me, made sure they understood my needs, and followed through by meeting my needs as an individual I had a much more comfortable and calm experience.