Osler staff learn sign language to provide patient-inspired health care

Recreation Therapist Marlene (Marni) Bannerman and Occupational Therapist Kaitlin Cowper can now add American Sign Language to their list of skills. The two therapists from the Adult Mental Health Unit at Osler have been using their lunch hours to learn sign language so they could better communicate with a Deaf patient.

Their efforts are a perfect example of Osler’s Value of compassion - being kind and helping each other and considering the unique needs of others in the pursuit of health and well-being - in action.

Going Beyond to strengthen human connection

Staff across Osler rely on interpretation services to remove barriers to care. To strengthen their personal connection with their patient, however, Marni and Kaitlin took it one step further.

They went to YouTube, found a series of videos and got to work learning to sign a couple of basic phrases, including “Hi, nice to meet you” and “My name is...”

How did the patient react? “Right away, their face lit up … and they were far more open and receptive and started coming to group sessions with us,” said Marni.

“I think for anyone, it’s frustrating when you’re not being heard and we identified that their main form of communication was through sign language so this allowed the opportunity for us to show that we were hearing them,” said Kaitlin.

They continued their lunch-time learning sessions to hone their new skill - practicing whenever and wherever they could. “When we came together for group we’d practice with each other and with the patient. We learned a lot in a fairly short time,” said Kaitlin. Their efforts even inspired some of the nurses to learn some signs as well.

Communication is key

“Every time we were on the unit we were able to say ‘Good morning or good afternoon. How are you? How’s your day?’ and see if the patient needed water or a snack, anything like that,” said Marni, adding that as someone who wears hearing aids herself, her motivation to learn sign language was both professional and personal. “If I wasn’t able to communicate with people around me, it would put me in a very negative space.”

When asked about the many hours they put in to learn sign language, they said they hadn’t really thought about that in that way. “It’s just what we do. We put ourselves out there to meet the needs of our patients.”