SIGNAL (Surpassing Barriers with Sign Language)
Health is the most important aspect of life for all human beings that we must to take care of and treat this better. But sometimes, a person has difficulty in getting access to healthcare because of their physical limitations, which can reduce his ability to obtain information or being independent. Each person has the same right in obtaining access to the health services they need, without suffering hardship. This things also applies to the deaf and it can be achieved if all of medical workforce such as doctors have the ability to communicate with their deaf patients using BISINDO (Bahasa Isyarat Indonesia). As a part of Standing Committee on Human Rights and Peace (SCORP) and Standing Committee on Medical Education (SCOME), we have our responsibility to hold a community development regarding to our focus area. We collaborate together to improve medical student’s communication especially towards Deaf that is included in vulnerable people group.
The third intervention of SIGNAL (Surpassing Barriers with Sign Language) contains 3 main agendas. First, we learn how to sign medical terms, taught by Deaf Facillitators from The Unspoken Ministry (TUM). Secondly, we have a game session for the bonding with our community, lastly we have a roleplay session with the deaf facillitators, divided into two groups with a doctor-deaf patients scenario to roleplay with. The intervention was successfully done and attented by medical students from Universitas Airlangga from the range of 2019 to 2021 with the total of 133 members as a community.
We started this Community Development with the intention of improving medical student’s skill in communication with Deaf and at the same time fulfilling the rights of the Deaf to be heard and to be able to live independently by creating an environment with signing people inside. So far we have succeeded in teaching more than 100 of our medical students from faculty of medicine in Universitas Airlangga with three topics of daily signs, basic signs, and medical related signs in the span of one and a half years.
Vulnerable people may not be a majority of the people but they strive to live independently. we as human beings are obliged to give our best to fulfill the inclusive world that they try to live in. Hopefully with this project we can give both sides (medical workforce and the Deaf) a better communication experience in the future.
