Some deaf Montrealers are now having to go to medical appointments without professional sign language interpreters because the budget for English interpreters has ran out.
Residents with hearing impairment say they've had to cancel or delay appointments.
Having a professional sign language interpreter present for important medical appointments is an essential service for deaf people. But for the second year in a row, there is no money left in the budget for English interpreters before the end of the fiscal year.
Anna Kovi, who is hearing impaired, is in treatment for breast cancer. She told CTV News that for the past month, she's been relying on her daughter to help set up and accompany her to appointments.
"It does give me a lot of stress. It creates a lot of stress and it's very frustrating sometimes," she said through an interpreter.
"If there’s no interpreter, I have to depend of my family, or I have to write the information or I have to go through my daughter."
She said the health-care system is extremely difficult to navigate as a deaf person and if she doesn't have access to an interpreter, she says she will often simply cancel her appointment.
Every year, the regional health authority for South-Central Montreal allocates just over $200,000 to an organization called the Montreal Metropolitan Deaf Community Centre.
The organization then pays interpreters who accompany deaf patients to their medical appointments. According to one interpreter who spoke to CTV News on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from her employer, the money dried up at the beginning of March and their invoices won't be paid until the new fiscal year starts on April 1.
That leaves patients like Kovi in the lurch.
She calls the situation stressful and frustrating because it can actually be dangerous if she is unable to properly communicate with her doctors.
"For example, one time, I remember a doctor gave me a prescription and he gave me the wrong prescription, and so it was hard to communicate about the prescription itself with the doctor," she said.
Elisabeth Prass, the Liberal opposition critic for people with disabilities, said she has raised the issue directly with the health minister and said interpretation services for the deaf should not be limited by budget.
"It should be considered a human right for anybody to be able communicate if they have a disability, much less when it comes to medical issues, regardless of language," she told CTV News.
"I don't think the budget being depleted is an answer. If the budget is depleted, it's because the budget isn't meeting the needs on the ground."
