Difficult call: emergency services were unavailable for the deaf
In the Vladimir region, community activists filed a lawsuit against the local Ministry of Health, as in this region hearing-impaired people could not call an ambulance and make an appointment with a doctor: for this they had to talk on the phone, which made communication impossible. The Ministry of Health rejected the demands of the People's Control organization in court, but at the same time began to fulfill them — in a month a technical solution will be developed that will allow hearing-impaired people to interact with emergency services and medical institutions. The precedent may be important both from a legal point of view and from a technical point of view — so far, the hard of hearing and the deaf across the country have difficulty going to the hospital, but this may change soon. For more information, see the Izvestia article.
How will the problem be solved in the Vladimir region
The public organization "People's Control" told Izvestia that it had filed a lawsuit in defense of an unspecified group of people, as they believe that the healthcare system of the Vladimir region "discriminates against the rights" of the hearing-impaired and hard of hearing. The deaf cannot use CMC messages or alternative communication channels to call 103 for emergency medical care and when contacting medical institutions for consultations, calling a doctor at home, etc. Voice call remains the main communication channel.
Communication will also fail with personal contact — there are simply no translators from the Russian sign language (RJ) in the staff of hospitals and polyclinics.
The claim was considered in the October court on April 1. In support of the claims, the activists stated that making an appointment with a doctor through Gosuslugi or the portal of the regional Ministry of Health does not help, as it often implies confirmation or requesting additional information by phone. At the same time, registry staff, as a rule, do not pay attention to the fact that the patient is deaf, even if he specifically indicated this. And the doctor's appointment is simply canceled.
Russian Russian is also difficult to exchange text messages: for many deaf people, Russian is their native language, while Russian is a foreign language. Some people with disabilities do not understand it well and have difficulty speaking it. That is why access to sign language translation is needed, according to People's Control. The Ministry of Health of the Vladimir region called the claims unreasonable and abstract, since it is impossible to "put a translator from Russian sign language in each registry."
But at the same time, some of the requirements of the "People's Control" have already begun to be fulfilled: on March 5, the Vladimir Regional branch of the All-Russian Society of the Deaf concluded an agreement with the Vladimir Ambulance Service and with the Autonomous Non-Governmental Organization "Duty and Dispatch Support Service for Motorists", which developed a technical solution that allows hearing-impaired people to interact with emergency services and medical institutions. The system, they promise in the "People's Control", will work in a month. A hearing-impaired person using a smartphone app will be able to communicate first with an operator via text messages, and if communication difficulties arise, they will be switched to a translator.
People's Control noted that if this technical solution works and fixes the problem, the organization will be ready for a settlement agreement with the Ministry of Health. The system can be used in services 103, 112, 122 and polyclinic registries.
Izvestia sent a request to the Ministry of Health of the Vladimir region.
Are emergency services available for the deaf
Nikolai Shmelev, Assistant to the President of the All—Russian Society of the Deaf (VOG) for the Accessible Environment, notes that VOG is closely monitoring what is happening in Vladimir - there have never been such large-scale lawsuits against government authorities and large organizations on the issues of an accessible environment for the deaf and hard of hearing.
Grigory Turintsev, a representative of the People's Control organization, told Izvestia that work on this topic began back in 2021, when one of the projects on inclusive tourism in the Vladimir region found out that almost all emergency operational services — 101, 102, 103, 104, 112 — In fact, they only work by voice.
"The regional Vladimir Society of the Deaf has confirmed that this is indeed a huge problem — the deaf are currently deprived of communication with emergency services," the source told Izvestia. — You can send an SMS to the emergency services at 112, but the hearing impaired also have problems with this.
Nikolai Shmelev points out, with reference to data from the 2020 All-Russian Population Census, that 239,930 people speak Russian sign language in Russia, but these figures are underestimated, "since information about sign language proficiency was provided voluntarily." According to Alla Mallabiu, Director General of the I Can Hear You organization, 157 thousand people constantly use Russian language for communication. And those who prefer to communicate in Russian sign language are most likely unable to receive information audibly.
However, not all deaf people understand written Russian well, although they learned it at school, Nikolai Shmelev continues.
Russian Russian sign language has its own semantics, its own grammar, which does not comply with the general rules of the Russian language. And sometimes not only the disabled person, but also the dispatcher cannot understand what such a patient wants," he said.
The representative of the VOG points out that in recent years the situation with teaching Russian to the hard of hearing has worsened, as correctional schools for the deaf have been transformed into inclusive institutions where children with various nosologies are sent. As a result, deaf children do not understand children with autism spectrum disorder, and hearing children are afraid of sounds made by deaf people who do not control the volume of their voice. There are also not enough teachers: the deaf are often taught by people who do not know how to teach the deaf.
The VOG educational and methodological center told Izvestia that even for those who at first glance understand the speech addressed to them very well, very often "visual" support is needed: knowledge of the Russian language may not cover all areas of activity and go beyond the scope of education. And in a stressful situation, this is especially pronounced.
But even considering that a hard-of-hearing person can communicate via text messages, this is not always technically possible: SMS describing the situation to 112 cannot be sent in all regions, and this does not apply to other emergency services at all.
Sergey Bagnenko, the chief freelance specialist of the Russian Ministry of Health for emergency medical care, told Izvestia that, in accordance with the order of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, an ambulance call can be carried out, including via SMS. But the technical provision of this opportunity is already the task of the subject of the Russian Federation.
Alla Mallabiu notes that all deaf people in Russia are also entitled to 84 hours of translation per year, the state pays for this service. However, according to data for 2024, there are 1,252 sign language interpreters in 86 regional offices of VOG, and there are chronically not enough such specialists in the regions, says Nikolai Shmelev.
How can the problem be solved
Alla Mallabiu notes that many large companies are currently developing Russian sign language translation avatars using artificial intelligence. She believes that in a few years, this technology will replace 80% of translators in all government agencies.
Similar Russian sign language translation avatars already exist. Alexander Lebedev, senior developer of artificial intelligence systems at Innostage, talks about the project of the Adapts IT company, which, in collaboration with Novosibirsk State Technical University, created a similar technology and has already used it to translate an online course in materials science and in the university admissions office.
— In Novosibirsk, Alexey Prikhodko, a deaf programmer, made a prototype of a system capable of translating sign language into text in Russian, — Alexander Lebedev continues.
Sergey Golitsyn, head of T1 AI, also mentions the Russian Surdo-help service from the Sensor-Tech laboratory, which allows a deaf person to communicate with a hearing interlocutor using a virtual assistant trained in more than 150,000 gestures.
Alexander Lebedev notes that developments on this topic are underway all over the world. In Israel, the startup CODA has created an AI avatar that translates spoken speech into American sign language almost instantly. Indian Company signer.ai offers AI-based solutions for translating written text into sign language.
Vladimir Kravtsev, an expert in the field of generative AI and advanced analytics at Axenix, believes that the next two to five years may become a turning point in this sense. Yuri Tyurin, Technical Director of MD Audit (Softline Group), points out that so far the main difficulties remain the variety of sign languages, difficulties in recognizing facial expressions and context, as well as the technical limitations of cameras and sensors in mass consumer devices.
And Timofey Voronin, Deputy Director for Technology Transfer at the NTI Competence Center for Big Data Storage and Analysis Technologies at Lomonosov Moscow State University, believes that AI will not be able to completely replace sign language translators, but will only be their assistant, since there are still significant difficulties in imitating live communication. people.
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