ST. PAUL, MN – Fairview Range Regional Health Services in Hibbing agreed to settle a federal lawsuit that began after the Minnesota Department of Human Rights issued a probable cause finding that Fairview failed to properly communicate with Matthew Svatos over several days that his newborn daughter was receiving several medical tests to determine whether she needed invasive medical care.

Matthew Svatos and his wife, of Hibbing, went to Fairview Range Regional Health Services in May 2013 to become parents for the first time. Matthew, who is deaf and uses American Sign Language as his primary language, had an interpreter available during the birth of the Svatos’ child, consistent with Fairview’s policy to provide interpreters to “family members, friends and other untrained individuals for reasons of completeness, accuracy, impartiality and confidentiality.”

Shortly after the birth, doctors found a medical abnormality which caused them to have concerns about the possible long-term health of the child. The interpreter for Matt Svatos was not available as the interpreter had left the hospital immediately after the birth of the Svatos daughter. Mr. Svatos spent the next 48 hours without any meaningful ability to directly communicate with the Fairview physicians caring for his daughter. This experience caused him to feel very anxious as he was generally aware that the physicians for his new child were concerned about her health but he could not directly speak to them.

 “The situation was very stressful for Mr. Svatos as a new father, the investigation found that he was often ignored and in the words of one witness, ‘treated like a piece of furniture,’ said MDHR Commissioner Kevin Lindsey. “While Fairview initially properly secured an ASL interpreter, Fairview was unable to secure a second ASL interpreter and its efforts to arrange a Video Relay Interpreter were unreasonably slow and not very effective. Fairview violated its own internal policy of not having relatives translate when it asked Mrs. Svatos to translate for her husband.”

The MDHR investigation made the following findings:

• Fairview was unable to successfully communicate with Mr. Svatos because Fairview was unable to provide an ASL interpreter or a reasonable alternative means of communication.

• Fairview staff violated company policy by asking a relative of Mr. Svatos to translate.

• Fairview failed to provide adequate training on how to communicate with individuals who are deaf and many Fairview staff personnel ignored Mr. Svatos.

• Fairview failed to make timely arrangements for VRI and as a result the Svatos discharge meeting was delayed by several hours.

• Fairview failed to train staff on how to use VRI and as a result the connection was slow, poor, choppy and facing a direction that made it difficult for Mr. Svatos to understand the interpreter.

Disability discrimination claims are the most common claims investigated by MDHR.  Between January and July of 2017, 26% of the complaints filed with the Department involved a claim of disability discrimination.

If you believe you have been discriminated against in violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act, please contact MDHR’s enforcement unit at 651.539.1100, 1.800.657.3704 or online at mn.gov/mdhr/intake. For more information about disability discrimination, please visit mn.gov/mdhr or follow the conversation on Twitter at Twitter at @mnhumanrights.

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