She sat by herself at the Lusignan Health Centre, her heavily pregnant stomach at odds with her frail-looking body. She was approached and quickly got into a conversation using sign language and even though it was obvious that she was communicating, the security guard decided to point out, “She dumb”.
Twenty-year-old Chandra Khamraj is deaf and cannot speak. She is expecting her third child and on that hot, sunny morning she was waiting to have a blood test done. She pointed to a room full of persons, indicating that was where she was to have the test done. She was unsure of her number in the line of people but seemed quite prepared to wait it out.
An intervention by a concerned acquaintance, who checked with the nurses, resulted in her completing the task in minutes and being able to leave the health centre’s compound.