Friday, August 3, 2012 - 12:56pm
Governor Markell signs bills to aid hearing impaired
Updated Friday, August 3, 2012 - 1:04pm
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Governor Markell signs two bills Friday to assist the hearing impaired in Delaware.
Government officials as well as community leaders and advocates were present for the signing.
Senate Bill 248 provides telecommunications service for analog communications devices, and House Bill 384 requires broader testing of hearing loss of newborns in hospitals.
State Senator Karen Peterson, who sponsored the bill, said a constituent writing on behalf of his deaf father informed her that Delaware was behind on the issue.
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"What he said was, 'Do you know that Delaware is the only state that does not offer CapTel 800 service?' Click here to listen
real-time captioning on the telephone for people who don't have computers," Peterson said.
During the discussion before the signing, Linda Heller, President of the Hearing Loss Association of Delaware, said the group had been trying to get the state to provide the service since 2004.
State Representative Michael Ramone says government may have been slow to act because of the few amount of people affected in a small state like Delaware, but Peterson said that may not be the case.
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"Surprisingly, we don't know how many people will benefit, which is why we limited the number of units per month that would be approved. We have no idea how many deaf or hearing impaired or speech impaired people don't have Internet service. We don't know if that number is 50, or 500, or 5000," she said.
As a result of House Bill 384, Delaware hospitals will have to establish Universal Newborn Hearing Screening (UNHS) programs to test all infants for signs of hearing loss.
Previously, only infants with known risk factors were tested.
Peterson says both sides of the aisle came together to make the bills happen.
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"With Representative Kenton and I being upstate, downstate, Democrat, Republican, it truly was the best of the Delaware way, where people said this is the problem, let's just get it fixed," she said.
Senate Bill 248 passed through the House and Senate unanimously, while House Bill 384 passed in the Senate with a vote of 20 to 1.
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