Strictly’s Rose Ayling-Ellis defends deaf woman after paramedics couldn’t tell her that husband had died
Rose Ayling-Ellis is speaking in defence of a deaf woman who is calling for change after ambulance workers were unable to tell her that her husband had died.
Elizabeth Corbett was at work at the Royal School for the Deaf when she received a call from her children, aged nine and 11, to say that her husband David would not wake up.
The concerned mum told her children to call an ambulance while a colleague drove her home.
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The two young children performed CPR until the paramedics arrived, who tried to revive David. However, Elizabeth said the emergency workers were unable to communicate with her or explain the situation.
With no one able to communicate with her, Elizabeth called the receptionist at her job and asked her to speak with the paramedics. She was informed by her colleague, who used British Sign Language (BSL), on a video call that David had sadly passed away.
The mum is now calling for all emergency workers to have sign language training and a fully charged iPad which will allow them to connect instantly to a qualified interpreter.
Strictly Come Dancing winner and actor Rose joined the widow’s campaign and defended her after her story attracted some ‘upsetting’ comments.
Quote-tweeting the BBC’s story about Elizabeth, Rose said: “Some of the comment is quite upsetting. I just want to break it down as simple as possible….”
She then tweeted responses to four questions she had seen regarding Elizabeth’s experience.
“1. ‘Why can’t the children tell the mother?’
"No child should ever do this.
“2. ‘Why can they just write it down?’
“Imagine going through the most traumatic time of your life, you need someone there you can access to in the full language. Not writing backwards and forwards.”
“3. ‘Oh, so paramedics must be able to learn to speak in different language now?’
“It is BRITISH sign language. Paramedics is already so overwhelmed with the amazing work they do. They should have been given the right tools/support to be able to communicate with this lady.”
“For example, Paramedics having emergency interpreter on iPad ready on call for this situation, And, basic BSL to be able to pick up quickly that this lady was trying to communicate with them.”
The final tweet in the thread reads: “4. ‘Let be realistic here…’
“No, let be realistic here, we pay our taxes too, we have every rights to receive the same care.”
Craig Whyles, divisional director for Derbyshire at East Midlands Ambulance Service, offered his condolences to David's family on behalf of the service and said they are 'deeply sorry for the poor experience they had'.
In a statement released earlier this week, he said: "We would like to speak to the patient’s family about their experience and urge them to get in touch with us at their earliest convenience.
“As an organisation, we are currently working with the Nottinghamshire Deaf Society to discuss how we can improve our education to staff around deaf awareness and common emergency communication problems.
"This includes the involvement of deaf community groups in our educational training and assessments, developing awareness programmes of the deaf and deafened community and looking into the possibility of virtual interpreter apps which EMAS staff can use to connect them with an interpreter to have a conversation with a deaf patient or family user.”
Gregory Robinson