If you plan to have someone accompany you to your medical appointment, try to plan ahead. Before your appointment, you may want to call the service provider and inform them about your disability and the role that your support person will play in the appointment. You may also request that all of the important information from your appointment (such as future appointment dates, risks associated with a procedure or prescription information) be provided to you in an accessible format, even if you decide to bring along a support person.
If you are told that your support person cannot participate in your healthcare, politely remind the staff member that you are entitled to the same level of service as anyone else, which may include the assistance of a support person as a reasonable accommodation for your needs.
If staff refuse to accommodate you, consider escalating your complaint, for example by speaking to a supervisor or by making a formal complaint.
If this approach does not address your concerns, you can find additional options in the section of this handbook, titled What can I do to enforce my rights?
Information for healthcare workers and service providers
Legal obligations
- Individuals with a disability have the right to equal access to services that are provided to other people without disabilities. Identical treatment may result in discrimination and service providers have an obligation to design their processes or systems to make them inclusive. It is illegal to discriminate against someone due to their disability, this includes discrimination against guide dogs.
- Patients who are blind, Deafblind, or partially sighted have the right to keep their medical information private. Therefore, you cannot expect/require them to bring a sighted friend or family member to an appointment.
- You cannot make the patient pay for reasonable accommodations. It is part of your legal duty to accommodate them up to the point of “undue hardship”. Therefore, they are not responsible for the cost.
Tips for accommodating people who are blind, deafblind or partially sighted
- Ask the individual what you can do to better accommodate them during their appointment, procedure or interaction. Each individual is different and what one person needs during their appointment is not necessarily what another person will require during theirs. Each person knows what they require better than anyone else.
- Make sure to inform the individual when you enter a room, leave a room, walk away, or approach them.
- Tell the patient you are going to touch them before doing so.
- Ask the patient questions and address them directly, even if the patient is accompanied by a support person.
- Ask patients in the hospital if you can help them in other ways. For example, helping them open their food trays, describing their meal to them, and/or helping them locate the food on the tray.
- If you see an individual standing in a waiting room for a while, ask them if they need help locating the seating area. Some people cannot find the seating area in a waiting room and will stand by the wall for the entire waiting time.
- If you are unable to provide an individual with a text-to-speech format for them to read their prescription, ask them if they need help differentiating the prescription.
- You can try tying rubber bands around a prescription bottle to help differentiate the bottles based on touch. You can also put one of the prescriptions in a different-sized bottle to help differentiate them. Make sure to explain and identify which prescription is which to the patient.
- Provide specific directions and offer to accompany the person to their desired location