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The sound of silence

A shortage of sign-language interpreters in Halifax has added pressure to an already burdened system providing a critical service for the city’s deaf and hard-of-hearing citizens.

The shortage has led to the suspension of HRM Council’s TV sign-language interpreter service and caused frustration for those who must schedule important meetings around the availability of interpreters. Deaf students sometimes miss classes altogether if their interpreter is sick and a substitute can’t be found.

Shaune MacKinlay, spokeswoman for HRM, says the city is keen to restart the service so that deaf and hard-of-hearing Haligonians can follow council proceedings. It has sent a letter to the Society of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Nova Scotians, which provides the service, requesting an interpreter.

“Unfortunately, they have not been able to do so up to this point,” she says. “We understand that as a not-for-profit group, they are severely limited in what they are able to provide.”

Frank O’Sullivan, the executive director of the society, says the shortage is Canada-wide. “And the need for interpreters increases every year,” he added, speaking through an interpreter in his Halifax office.

The society handles bookings for community interpreters across the province, serving the approximately 4,000 Nova Scotians who use American Sign Language (ASL) as their first language. That’s about 3,000 bookings a year. O’Sullivan says they have at least 50 assignments a week, parsed out among three full-time interpreters, one part-time interpreter and a handful of freelance interpreters. One part-time interpreter in Sydney is responsible for all of Cape Breton.

His short-term “wish list” includes another staff interpreter and more down the road meeting the growing demand. Limited funding and a limited pool of experienced interpreters has caused the current crunch, he says.

O’Sullivan was born hard-of-hearing in Ireland in the early 1960s and soon became deaf. He never had access to interpreters at the school for deaf children he attended and relied, like most deaf people historically, on his own communication system, a notebook for written communication and help from friends and family.

“We rarely have interpreters sitting around available.”
— Frank O’Sullivan

He learned Irish sign language; when he moved to Canada at the age of 21 in 1982, he had to learn a whole new language—ASL. Access to interpreters has greatly removed barriers to his everyday life, he says, and he wants other people to have ready access to that service, too.

As it stands, deaf people have to be great organizers, arranging personal appointments for which they need an interpreter around the schedules of the interpreters. That means if three people need interpreters for a doctor’s appointment Tuesday morning, one or two of them will likely have to reschedule. Last-minute situations like job interviews can be even harder to cover.

“We rarely have interpreters sitting around available,” O’Sullivan says. “That’s one of the challenges—last-minute appointments. If an emergency happens at the hospital, there’s no planning for that.”

Bottleneck dates like school Christmas concerts and September’s back-to-business rush make getting an interpreter nearly impossible, as everybody requires the same service at the same time. Christmas can’t be postponed and deaf parents often miss out on their children’s school plays.

“If it’s serious, if it’s a life-threatening issue, we’ll do some juggling and make an interpreter available as best we can,” he says. There is an emergency system, but it only takes a few concurrent emergencies to max out the available interpreters and scheduled meetings have to be cancelled to free them up.

On an emotional level, deaf and hard-of-hearing people have to trust the interpreter to abide by their code of ethics. Interpreting at financial, medical or counselling appointments means they are privy to deeply personal information. “It’s very frustrating, but I’m used to it,” O’Sullivan says. “I think of all the barriers I had before. Before, I couldn’t be involved. Now I can.”

The Internet has removed many barriers, though. “It’s manna from heaven,” he laughs. Email, Skype and texting have largely eradicated the once-formidable obstacle of the telephone. Blogs, vlogs and YouTube have led to a renaissance of communication around the deaf world. Vlogs (video logs) are especially popular, as it allows deaf people to communicate in their own language. “Everybody and his dog has a blog,” O’Sullivan says. “Some people would much prefer to see it in their own language—to see it with hands in the air.”

The increase of online banking and other services has further removed barriers, but interpreters remain a critical bridge between the deaf and hearing world. Denise Smith is coordinator of the ASL/English Interpreter program at Nova Scotia Community College. It’s one of just four institutions providing that course in Canada.

Smith says NSCC is doing all it can to recruit more students to meet the shortfall. It recently doubled its output, graduating about 10 students a year, compared to every two years previously.

Interpreters follow two main career paths—educational interpreters, who work in the school system, and community interpreters, who help deaf people communicate with bankers, doctors, potential employers, counsellors and a huge range of other every-day activities. NSCC prepares students for both.

There is no shortage of work, especially if students are willing to move. Pay starts at around $17 an hour and rises to $40 an hour or higher in cities such as Toronto or Vancouver. “On any given day, there are a number of job ads for locations in the States and Canada,” she says. “There is always a need.”

Smith says many interpreters prefer the regular schedule of educational interpretation to the all-over-the-place life of a community interpreter. Some opt to become full-time freelancers.

One of the barriers is the hard road to becoming a qualified interpreter. Would-be students must first take 120 hours of beginner ASL, followed by a year of Deaf Studies Program at NSCC. Only then can they apply to the two-year interpreters program.  “It takes a long time,” Smith says.

While a few students have deaf friends or family, most are just drawn by a love of learning sign language and interpreting. “As the amount of qualified interpreters grows, so does the demand for more interpreters,” she says.

Serri Smith graduated from NSCC in 2009. She didn’t have a personal connection to sign language, but took it as a night class and fell in love. “I’d rather do something with my hands than sit and read a book. That’s just my learning style,” she says as her hands absent-mindedly sign.

She had worked as a pre-school teacher and a counsellor before settling on what now seems to be her lifelong career as a sign-language interpreter. Her work is all over the clock and all over the province, taking her from Halifax to Truro, Chester and even New Brunswick.

The work can be exhausting, especially at big events like Council meetings where people are speaking quickly, often talking over each other and in jargon. “Physically, you’re moving,” she says. “Sometimes you’re even sweating if you’re onstage with the lights.”

Serri Smith had hoped to tackle Council meetings, but the program was suspended before she got the chance.

It’s hard mental work, too—ASL works differently than conversational English. It’s not so much interpreting verbatim; interpreters have to convey the meaning. Many English statements are simply rhetorical. Asking “How are you?” is polite but the speaker usually doesn’t expect an honest answer. Interpreters must decide what the meaning is in each concept of a conversation and sign that. It can require mental gymnastics.

Smiling broadly, Serri Smith says she’s found her calling: “I love it every day.”

O’Sullivan believes that is a sign of things to come and the crunch will soon be over. “In the future, there will be enough interpreters,” he says.

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