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CO M M U N I T Y P. 24| A RO U N D A F P. 29 | O P I N I O N P. 33| B U S I N ESS P. 35 | G E TO U T P. 40 | S P O RT S P. 44| C L A SS I F I E D P. 47
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Wednesday, January 29, 2020
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Club West Golf Course Girl Scouts vs. GOP plan triggers angst, questions, complaints Water pipeline now a pipedream?
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DANCING WITH THE STARS
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‘NILE’ STAR
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FLORIDA BOUND
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See page 20
BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
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s the four investors prepare for an open house today on their plan to save the Club West Golf Course, dozens of homeowners are raising numerous questions about the proposal and asking their HOA board to slow down a tentative schedule for considering it until they’re satisfied with the answers. The Edge Team – comprising four local buyers, Taylor-Morrison home builders, a golf course architect and a course-related designer and two land use attorneys – will hold the open house 6:30-8 p.m. Jan. 29 at
see WEST page 17
Ahwatukee Girl Scout and Brownie troops aren’t letting State House Republican leadership snub their campaign for a ban on releasing balloons, citing the damage remnants do to wildlife, especially birds. With help from LD 18 Rep. Mitzi Epstein, they were back at the State Capitol last week. See page 3 for details. (Heather Sapp/Special to AFN)
Ahwatukee deaf couple taking hospital to court
BY KEVIN REAGAN AFN Staff Writer
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n Ahwatukee couple is taking Dignity Health and its Chandler Regional Medical Center to federal court over what they consider to be a lack of interpretive services for deaf patients. Mitchell and Dawn Siegel have been waiting more than five years to resolve a civil complaint they filed against the medical provider for practices they think are discriminatory against the deaf community. Dawn Siegel visited Dignity’s Chandler Regional Medical Center in 2014 for severe stomach pains and claims she was not provided a sign language interpreter who could translate what doctors and nurses were telling her. She was instructed to write down what she needed to tell hospital staff or communicate through an off-site interpreter via webcam
video. Siegel found the video service ineffective due to poor visual quality and the interpreter’s inabilities. She claims her requests for a certified, in-person interpreter were not granted during her nine-day hospital visit, resulting in Siegel never wanting to return. “I should be able to go to whatever hospital I want to,” Dawn said through an interpreter. “It’s not fair.” The Siegels were among a group of deaf individuals who joined together in 2014, to sue Dignity Health for violating protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act obligates health providers to “effectively communicate” with deaf people. The other plaintiffs told similar stories of not having access to in-person interpreters at the Chandler hospital or being forced to use the video services. One plaintiff alleged Dignity’s video service was not working when doctors needed to tell
him he needed emergency surgery. Staff had to deliver the news through the patient’s relative over the phone, court documents show. All the plaintiffs chose to settle their claims with Dignity last year, except for the Siegels. The hospital offered to pay $25,000 to resolve the case, Mitchell Siegel said, but he and his wife declined. “It was insulting,” Mitchell said through an interpreter about the offer. The rights of deaf people are the same as anyone else, Mitchell added, so they decided it was time for a jury to hear their story. Elizabeth Tate, a Phoenix-based attorney who will be representing the Siegels at trial – scheduled to begin Feb. 4 – will try to convince a jury Dignity acted indifferently to Siegel’s needs by providing webcam translators the plaintiffs considered to be “woefully inadequate.”
see DEAF page 6