Information for disabled and deaf people

Tools for accessing healthcare services

Disability alerts and health passports give your healthcare professionals information about you for your appointment. The information on this page contains useful information on disability alerts; Health Passports; New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) resources,  help if you are pregnant and research.

Disability alerts: tell us what you need from us

A disability alert adds information about your needs to your electronic patient file. It helps us make sure you can access your appointment, understand what’s happening, and feel safe.

To create your disability alert, fill out the ‘my access information’ form to tell us what you need.

Contact us for more information or help with disability alerts

• Phone: 0800 DISABILITY (0800 347 224 5489)
• Email: disability@ccdhb.org.nz
• Text: 021 578 307

My Health Passport

To save you repeating information to your doctor or health and disability services, use My Health Passport. It explains how you want them to communicate with you and help you.

The passport is a booklet you fill out and take with you to visit health and disability services.

How to use your Health Passport:

Fill in as much as you like — some of the information might not apply to you. Fill it in before your appointment.

Take your passport every time you visit a disability health service. Tell reception that you have your passport with you.

Give the passport to your healthcare professional, so they’ll know what you want them to.

Take your passport when you leave.

Get the most from your Health Passport

• Keep your passport safe, so you can find it in an emergency.
• Keep your passport with you during your appointment.
• Remind all staff who work with you to read the passport
  

Where to get a Health Passport

• Download a health passport from the Health and Disability Commissioner’s Website 

Find out more about Health Passports

Contact our Disability team if you have questions about the passport or request a Health Passport:

• Phone: 0800 DISABILITY (0800 347 224 5489)
• Email: disability@ccdhb.org.nz
• Text: 021 578 307

Accessing health information in NZSL

You can access a wide variety of health information in NZSL. Below is information that is useful for the deaf community to know when visiting hospital.

Videos

• We’ve made a video for the Deaf community about visiting the hospital. Watch For the Deaf community: Coming to the hospital? Some useful information You can turn captions on or off.
• We’ve also got a huge amount of health resource videos on NZSL on our Hutt Campus website.
• Video library for deaf people by Signhealth. The largest health video library British Sign Language. Topics including cancer, depression, and domestic abuse. As these videos contain information for the deaf community in the UK, talk to your healthcare professional for health advice specific to New Zealand. 

Other resources

NZSL is the only language of many deaf people, and the first and preferred language of others. It is also the basis for deaf culture. The New Zealand Medical Journal recently published the following article about how this affects deaf people’s experiences with our health services.

• Deaf New Zealand sign language users access to healthcare 
  
• We have made a series of videos that explain this research in NZSL. You’ll find the videos on the page at the link, under the title ‘Research about “Deaf communities’ access to health services” published in the NZ Medical Journal (NZSL translation)’.
• Toolkit for Emergency Planning: Capacity-Building Toolkit for including Aging & Disability Networks in Emergency Planning developed by the US Department of Health and Human Services

Accessing an interpreter if you’re pregnant and use NZSL

View information here