Morrison’s Space: A DeafBlind Activist

What It Feels Like to Be DeafBlind in a Hospital Using VRI

March 24, 2026

Intro: Before we talk about policy, law, or systems, we have to talk about people, human beings. Behind every regulation and every accommodation request is a human being who deserves to understand what is happening to their own body. My recent article, The Inaccessibility and Clinical Risks of Video Remote Interpreting (VRI) for DeafBlind Patients, lays out the evidence and the policy failures that make VRI unsafe. But evidence alone cannot capture what it feels like to be a DeafBlind patient in a hospital when communication disappears. This post is about that experience, the human side of a system that still chooses convenience over access, humanness.

Imagine waking up in a hospital bed. You can feel the stiffness of the sheets, the cold of the IV line taped to your arm, the vibration of footsteps moving quickly around you. You know people are in the room – you can sense movement, air shifting, bodies passing by, the typical “hospital smell,” but you have no idea who they are, who’s the doctor, who’s the nurse, what they’re doing, or whether they’re talking to you.

Now imagine that you cannot see the monitor beside you. You cannot read the numbers that tell you whether your heart is stable or your oxygen is dropping. You cannot hear the alarms that signal something is wrong. You cannot see the faces of the doctors or nurses who enter your room. You cannot tell when someone is speaking to you, or whether they are speaking about you.

And then someone wheels in a screen.

A glowing rectangle. A blurry face. A stranger’s voice echoing through a speaker. A Video Remote Interpreter – a tool designed for deaf people who can see the screen, read facial expressions, and follow visual cues. A tool that assumes you can access information you simply cannot. A tool not made for deafblind people.

For a DeafBlind patient, this is not communication. It is isolation. It is a strip of humanness.

You try to make out the interpreter’s hands, but the lighting is wrong, and the video appears blurry. Their clothing blends into the background. The camera angle is off. The video freezes. The audio lags. The video relay interpreter cannot see the full room, cannot tell who is speaking, cannot describe what is happening around you. They cannot give you the environmental information you need to feel safe and aware.

Meanwhile, doctors and nurses continue moving around you, talking over you, adjusting machines, making decisions about your body. They are using communication methods that are familiar to them – speech, gestures, pointing at screens – not the methods you need to understand what is happening to you.

You feel the pressure of hands on your body, but you don’t know why. You feel the bed moving, but you don’t know where you’re going. You feel the tension in the room, but you don’t know what changed.

You are present, but you are not included. Your autonomy stripped.

This is what it feels like when communication access is stripped away from a DeafBlind patient in a hospital or any medical setting. It is not an inconvenience. It is not a misunderstanding. It is a complete removal of autonomy, the most basic human right to understand your own health, your own body, your own safety.

When hospitals and medical providers rely on VRI for DeafBlind patients, they are not providing access. They are creating danger. They are making decisions without informed consent. They are leaving patients in the dark – literally and figuratively.

Communication is not a luxury. It is not optional. It is not a preference. It is not something to be “figured out later.”

For DeafBlind patients, communication is survival. A human right.

Hospitals and medical providers must stop using VRI for DeafBlind individuals. Not because it is imperfect, but because it is impossible. DeafBlind patients need in‑person interpreters who can provide tactile communication, environmental information, and real‑time access to everything happening in the room.

Until that becomes the standard, DeafBlind patients will continue to experience fear, confusion, and exclusion in the very places meant to keep them safe.

And no one should ever feel that way in a hospital or in a medical setting.

… No one should ever have to guess what is happening to their own body in a hospital or in a doctor’s office. No one should be left in the dark while decisions are made around them. And no one should have to fight for the basic right to understand their own medical care… no one.

If this experience resonates with you, or if it shocks you, I invite you to read the companion article, The Inaccessibility and Clinical Risks of Video Remote Interpreting (VRI) for DeafBlind Patients. It explains why VRI is not just inconvenient for DeafBlind patients, but dangerous, oppressive, discriminatory, and incompatible with safe medical care. The lived experience you read here is not an exception. It is the predictable outcome of a system that still relies on tools that were never designed for DeafBlind communication.

Real change requires more than empathy. It requires policy, accountability, and a commitment to listening to the people most affected – and act.