Make sign language education compulsory for health professionals – Obed Mante Asare

The Head teacher of Diamond Kids School Complex, Mr. Obed Mante Asare has charged the Ghana Education Service and the government of Ghana to employ measures necessary to give health professionals compulsory training in sign language communication.

Delivering an address at the school’s flagship program, “Dakids Food Festival”, Mr. Asare expressed concerns about the lack of sign language interpreters in the health sector and the inadequate health professionals with some sign language proficiency in Ghana, considering it to be very worrying, especially in their consultations with Deaf patients; “we have lost some deaf friends because some doctors and nurses failed to establish proper communication with these special clients.”

“My profession as a sign language interpreter has given me the opportunity to interact with several deaf people and even some deaf and blind individuals who usually talk to me about some of their experiences dealing with doctors and nurses at hospitals”, he stated. It is for this reason he feels an urgent need to send across “this message for the government to enforce compulsory sign language education for Nurses and Doctors”.

The education, according to Mr. Asare, if executed would ensure health workers become self-sufficient and in some cases reduce their dependence on external sign language interpreters. In this regard, he envisioned it would go a long way to reduce some preventable loss of lives due to miscommunication between the deaf and health care providers in hospitals.

Dakids Food Festival saw the attendance of Dr. Borris Yelson of Chrisand Care Consult who together with other health professionals gave free health screening to attendants; Mr. Dzidula and Mr. Wonder Satsi all of Phytoscience Crystal Cell Ghana, Private Auditor Madam Sabrina Lane from Blue Skies Product Ghana Limited and Mrs. Elizabeth Afriyie from the Ghana Education Service all of whom gave the program maximum varieties of support.

Diamond Kids School Complex is an inclusive school situated in Nsawam – Oparekrom. It prides itself as a leading force in the provision of quality, total education, with special focus on the Hearing Impaired (Deaf) at the Basic Level of education.

One of its kind in the Nsawam – Adoagyiri Municipality, the school creates access to quality education and tolerates pupils from different backgrounds and of different nature. It is currently the only school in the Municipality with a special skill in admitting and providing educational needs for the HEARING IMPAIRED (DEAF) pupils in the society and also with a special skill in teaching its hearing (regular) pupils Sign language, French and Spanish language lessons, as well as vocational skill development.

Diamond Kids is one of the few schools in Ghana to be recommended by Korle Bu Teaching hospital for deaf education at the basic level.