Dingwall–based Deaf Services praised for part played helping save family from Black Isle house fire
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A TEAM of workers from Dingwall have been praised for saving the lives of a family of four in a house fire.
The small, committed team of social workers and support workers from Deaf Services, based in Dingwall, fitted a life-saving fire alarm to a home in Fortrose only weeks before a devastating house fire put the families lives at risk.
Lynda Campbell, hearing support coordinator with Deaf Services: said she was "delighted" to hear that the small teams Highland-wide holistic service had been praised by the householder Lois MacDonell, who is in her 70s, for playing a huge part in saving their lives.
Mrs MacDonell along with her daughter Penny (44), and her two grandchildren Vivienne (6) and Mark (4) were alerted to the fire at Lois's home on Castle Street in Fortrose at 10.45pm on Friday January 16 thanks to some recently installed fire alarm equipment.
Mrs Campbell said the team worked very hard with deaf and hearing impaired adults and children to make sure it had all the things in place to help around the home.
Deaf Services have joint partnerships with departments such as Audiology who can refer patients on to them.
Mrs Campbell said: "We are often asked to go out and to support people when they are finding it difficult to hear the TV, and when we visit them at home we find there are many other things we can do to help.
"When the service receives a referral a deaf support specialist will visit the patient at home and carry out a holistic assessment on how their daily lives are impacted by their hearing loss and what could be put in place to make a difference for them.
"The home visit assessment process is designed to allow time for a face to face discussion, which in turn both supports and encourages confidence for the patient to talk about their deafness.
"Issues that can be identified as part of this visit can include missing callers at the door; missing telephone calls, not hearing on the telephone or hearing their television/radio; sleeping in for school and work.
"While fire alarms might seem to be a strange thing for us to be involved with, it makes more sense when you think that when a hearing impaired person takes out their hearing aids at night, and will of course be unable to hear the fire alarm."
She continued: "To find out that because of the work we did , that we helped Mrs MacDonell and her family makes it all worthwhile. We were sorry to hear about the fire, but delighted to hear that we made a real difference. We'd like to thank Mrs MacDonell for recognising our work."
Mrs Campbell explained that Mrs MacDonell had been referred to the service by the audiology department at Raigmore Hospital.
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