Attitudes of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Persons towards Health Care System in Macedonia

Abstract

If the deaf community in the world has reach the point of recognizing their need for health care and accessing the health care institution in a different way, then we can say that they have been accepted as a cultural and linguistic community. Even though there has been a growth in demand for improved service in health care system, respecting their individual lifestyle, very little has been done in that direction in Republic of North Macedonia. The different way of communication of deaf people and hard of hearing, in Republic of North Macedonia, disables them to get the appropriate health care services that they are entitled in equally as the general population. That is why we made a research with a purpose to recognize the initial problems that people with hearing impairments in Republic of North Macedonia face with when accessing the health institutions. In this research, conducted in two municipalities of Republic of Macedonia, Tetovo and Gostivar, participated overall 40 respondents, which provided us with their prospective of how they percept the health care system in this country. It was a qualitative type of research, were we used the technique of an interview, and all the answers of the respondents were recorded on a video camera, then analyzed with a technique called interim. The results of this research shows that, even though the deaf community in this state has the right of accessing the health care institutions with an interpreter, (secured by the law of sign language of Republic of North Macedonia), they do not enjoy those rights, they have been disadvantaged when trying to access the health care system. Our recommendation is to inform these people about their rights for using interpreter secured by the law of Sign Language, and then the state to respond to their needs by providing them not just an interpreter, but also facilitating materials and methods for information for every health care center.