An Australian First

The Quota clubs of Mooloolaba and Nambour, located in Queensland, Australia, worked together to provide a first Down Under. The clubs jointly sponsored a project to provide captions on hospital procedure videos, which were presented to Nambour General Hospital, a facility that serves both communities.

The project stemmed from the frustration of a man about to undergo surgery at the hospital who was shown a video that explained the procedure. The problem was the man's hearing impairment—he couldn't fully understand what was about to happen to him. So, as a member of the advocacy group Better Hearing Sunshine Coast, he had the GREAT IDEA to mention the problem to Quota.

Clare Balston of the Mooloolaba club was 34th District Governor at the time. She and the patient discovered that video captioning was available through the Australian Captioning Centre at a cost of approximately Aus.$2,500 for six videos. So, they approached the Nambour club to work with them to get the job done.

The videos were presented to the hospital by the two club presidents, Joy Haywood of Mooloolaba and Kay Lancashire of Nambour. The ceremony, signed by an interpreter from the Deaf Society, included one of the captioned videos of a surgical procedure. Says Mooloolaba publicity chair Win Adams, "This was an enlightening experience for those with normal hearing."

The hospital is the first in Australia to have captioned videos for patients. Copies of these videos are now available for purchase throughout the country. So, because of the initiative of these two Quota clubs, the impact of this project has spread well past the immediate vicinity.

The clubs plan to work with Better Hearing Australia and the Deaf Society to extend the captioned video library.