MI Dept. of Civil Rights And Eye Doctor VIOLATE My Civil Rights
This ordeal started over a year ago – to be exact, it started on March 21, 2006.
I called my eye doctor, Dr. Bruce Dragoo, to schedule an eye exam and that they had to provide an interpreter for the appointment. They called me later that day and told me that I had to bring my own interpreter. I told them that under ADA, they were responsible to provide the interpreter, not me.
Several faxes ensued between us, and he told me that we could write notes, or use what he called, ‘tumbling E’s.’ He didn’t explain what ‘tumbling E’s’ meant. Not only that, he also wrote in one of his faxes, “You seem to be a rather intelligent individual”… How nice of him. I wonder if he says that to his black patients.
I told him that I would bring my interpreter to the appointment, then file a complaint, seeking reimbursement for the interpreter bill. So I did, and filed a complaint with Michigan’s Department of Civil Rights. They looked over my case, which took a while, then found that Dr. Dragoo violated my civil rights, and he did have to provide me an interpreter. They then asked if I was interested in mediation and I was not interested. They then asked for conciliation, which is different than mediation.
The agent in charge of conciliation took several months to work on it, and she actually told me if I wanted to have a meeting with her, I was welcome to bring my interpreter along. She also didn’t understand how the relay worked.
Soon after that, my case was turned over to another person at MDCR, and things seemed to go better this time around. The doctor agreed to pay me back the interpreter’s bill amount, plus interest. But he refused to apologize on the basis that I was rude to his office staff on the phone and he wanted the term ‘medically appropriate appointments’ in the settlement agreement.
In other words, he would only have to pay for the interpreter for appointments that only he deemed medically necessary.
I asked MDCR several times whether I had to sign this agreement to get reimbursement or not. At this time of writing, I have not gotten a straight answer. I have only gotten reassurances that I do not have to sign any agreements. I damn well know I don’t have to sign anything!
But I want my money back that I borrowed PLUS interest, and I want to be able to make appointments with my doctors and have equal communication without fighting for my damned rights for over a year! Hearing people do not have to put up with this crap!
The United States Department of Justice on their ADA website has case after case after case showing there is rock-solid precedent for doctors apologizing and giving reimbursement and there is even punitive damages awarded. With MDCR’s attempt to force me to agree to ‘medically appropriate appointments’ I would probably be the first in the State of Michigan and in the country, to have that restriction of the doctor deciding which appointments he can provide and pay for the interpreter!
Why am I being penalized here, when the doctor violated my civil rights?
EDIT: Several people have suggested that I contact DOJ – the problem is this happened over a year ago. I believe the statue of limitations has expired on this, unfortunately.
My Name
I’m doing this as a precaution to protect my reputation in the deaf v/blogosphere, because I now refuse to visit Ridor’s blog. I don’t know what’s going on there now and I’ve received two e-mails from him, a clear attempt to goad me into saying something he can use against me. I told him not to e-mail me again, and if he did, it would be considered harassment and that it was his final warning.
Now, I wish to inform you all that I read his blogpost about Wayne and Aidan, and I wrote only one comment there then left. If there are any more comments there signed by ‘A Deaf Pundit’ or any other version of ‘Deaf Pundit’, they are not made by me. I don’t know if anyone has done this, but considering the rash of impersonators of late, I thought it best for me to make this statement.
Thank you.
UPDATE: I looked at my blog stats, and I see that Ridor has been editing comments. How do I know? Look at this picture.
Update On Interpreter Bill
Great news!
I was just forwarded an e-mail informing us that the interpreter bill was passed unanimously in the Senate today. It is being sent back to the House of Representatives again because of a few revisions that were made. Once the House of Representatives approves the bill, it will be sent to the Governor for her signature.
Ingratiation within the Deaf Community
I’ve mulled this idea over for a while, and I’ve come to the conclusion that we haven’t explored this notion of ingratiation, one aspect of the Crab Theory, very thoroughly. Needless to say, every group has the problem of the Crab Theory. There will always be people out there who are going to pull you down, so they can get on top.
But ingratiation isn’t pulling down others so they can get on top. It’s about forging insincere relationships with others so they can get on top. I see people doing business networking, which is normal and a good thing to do. With business networking, you forge sincere relationships with people whose goals are similar to yours. It’s mutually beneficial and genuine respect is shared both ways.
But for some reason, ingratiating is a pervasive problem, and nobody’s talking about it. We just scream, ‘Crab Theory!’ when we’re internally criticized. That alone, doesn’t form the entirety of the Crab Theory.
We all know someone who’s ingratiating. Someone who’s always talking up the leaders at events and inserting herself/himself in the ‘in crowd’ and is quick to dump others if they’re no longer useful in assisting them achieving their goals, or if that ‘friend’ is perceived to be no longer popular.
For instance, it could be argued that’s how Jane K. Fernandes got to such a high position at Gallaudet. She didn’t exactly pull people down to get into her position, but many perceived her as using people to get where she wanted to be at. That’s just one example.
It goes without saying that hard feelings are created in those situations. Those hard feelings, in my opinion, is a major contributor to the pulling down we commit towards each other. We help each other to the top, with one side with sincerity, and the other not so quite…
Then the sincere ones get kicked in the face. So they get even by pulling the ingratiating person down to the bottom of the barrel. Then everyone lynches that person and keeps him/her at the bottom of the barrel if they can. And before we know it, we’re all keeping each other down at the bottom of the barrel, because it’s better to be safe than sorry, and so that’s the way it goes…
*sighs* Wouldn’t you agree it’s time to break the barrel?
Deaf Day at State Capitol
It’s been a long day for me. Today was Deaf Day at the State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, and on the spur of the moment, I decided I would skip my class and attend the event. Before I detail what happened at that day, I want to give a shout out to the excellent volunteer interpreters at the event (forgive me if I missed anyone or misspelled your names!): Janet Jurus - State Interpreter, Joy Thomassen - DODHH Interpreter Coordinator, Michelle Wolner, Victoria Ryan, Rose Gelushia, Misti Ryefield, Helen Boucher and Dave Coyne.
Anyway, they all did a terrific job interpreting, so if you see them around, thank them for volunteering their time to interpret this very important event!
There were several issues on the table for the deaf community to discuss with their legislators, and most of them weren’t interesting to me. I’m not hard of hearing, and most of the issues were for the hard of hearing. However, what was of interest to me was the Interpreter Bill, which I blogged about before. That went up in front of the Senate today, known as SB 25. They approved reading it for the third time, and will vote on its’ passage tomorrow!
If the Senate approves of the bill, and insiders are confident it will, it will then be referred back to the joint House and Senate committee to tweak the bill, then approve it once more then send it to Governor Granholm for her signature. Gotta love the political process – it takes forever to get things done sometimes.
I took the opportunity to chat with several individuals there and I was very pleased to be informed by Chris Hunter that his former boss, Ken Cooley, is going to have discussions next week on filling DODHH’s now vacant director position! We don’t know when the position will be filled, but it will be filled eventually. So it looks like our letters and e-mails did have an impact, folks!
I also was informed that DODHH is really struggling with a very small staff streamlining their system such as transferring their paperwork to electronic files, and updating their website so we can check interpreters’ credentials instead of calling DODHH all the time. The website can take care of that and allow the DODHH staff to do work that will serve us better. So let’s keep up the pressure on our legislators to give more funding to DODHH that they deserve, so they can serve us better.
My personal thoughts on this day: I thought it went well. I was a bit disappointed to see not very many deaf people attending. By my estimation, the majority were hard of hearing or late-deafened senior citizens. But I was happy to see that we finally gained an ally in the Senate – Senator Gleason. He sponsored the Interpreter Bill, I believe, and he told me that he is very happy to listen to us on our concerns regarding the deaf community! So that’s a step forward for us here in Michigan.
Meeting with a local Representative was also very nice. He’s not my Representative, but he’s in the same city where I am. He’s African-American, and I think I made a strong and positive impression with him when I pointed out that the deaf community is similar to the black community in the aspect of us being angry and voiceless sometimes when our civil rights are being violated. I think it resonated with him, and I’m hoping that message stays with him, and he will be willing to listen to us on deaf issues from now on.
And it was pretty cool having people come up to me and saying, ‘Oh I like your blog!’ 
Hope more deaf attend next year’s. I think we can have a very positive and drastic impact if more of us attend!
EDITED TO ADD: Tool Lady, a commentor pointed out that there were two other issues that were relevant to the deaf community: The hearing and vision screenings – to restore funding for schools to screen their students for vision and hearing issues.
The other issue was the Emergency Notification Act where deaf and hard of hearing persons can be notified about emergencies such as a terrorist attack, or extreme weather through a pager distribution system, implement a ‘telephone equipment distribution’ program that will include text pagers as qualifying telecommunication devices, and ensure that televised alerts are captioned and do not block the crawls at the bottom of the screen.
HILAROUS Vlog!
There’s a contest going around on DeafRead, for the worst vlog. So people are making vlogs that are uproariously funny and horrible. I vote for Seek Geo’s SG’s Worse vLog!
This is also subtitled, so the hearies can watch it. For those who do not know American Sign Language, the guy is not using American Sign Language. He is using Signed Exact English.
Hilarious!
Update on Police Brutality
The blog that announced about the deaf woman being brutalized by the police in Texas has moved to http://commaccessnowtexas.blogspot.com/
I also discovered this happened in Alvin, not in Houston as originally announced. They are planning a protest on May 24 at 1 p.m. in front of the Brazoria County courthouse. I encourage all deaf and hearing allies in Texas to go and participate in this protest!
MI DODHH Civil Rights Handbook
While searching for information on how to file a complaint with DODHH regarding Michigan QA interpreters, I stumbled across this:
DODHH is pleased to present the Handbook, a guide for creating a barrier free communication environment for Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and Deaf/Blind persons, businesses, educational institutions, employers, government agencies and service providers. The Handbook is 165 pages. The pdf edition has bookmarks that will lead readers to specific chapters. The Handbook is available on CD. Please contact dodhh@michigan.gov for a free copy. One copy limit per address please.
This is very useful for Michigan deaf residents, and it has some federal law information as well. So this might be useful for deaf individuals outside of Michigan as well.
If you want to download it: http://www.michigan.gov/documents/cis/Rights_Hb_DODHH_174911_7.pdf
Texas Police Brutalize the Deaf
I was e-mailed a link to a blog describing the horrors a deaf woman was put through when she was in police custody.
She called 911 because she was assaulted by her brother, but upon arriving at the scene, the police arrested her because her brother who had a criminal record, told them that she was crazy. This woman was held down by a female police officer and cavity searched by a male police officer! They also apparently refused to provide an interpreter for the woman, and labeled her as mentally ill because she could not communicate with anyone who didn’t know ASL. And this is the 21st century!
The full details of this poor woman’s ordeal is fully explained on that blog. Now my question is, what is the Texas Association of the Deaf doing about this? What is NAD doing about this?
What are we going to do about this?
