Zaylee

Zaylee, a First Nations woman, is hearing impaired.

Following school, Zaylee started a healthcare degree.

‘I’ve always wanted to be in health,’ she told the Royal Commission. ‘I thought … I can be there to help my family when they need it.’

Her lecturers warned Zaylee it would be ‘a daunting task’ but they were ready to support her. They gave her a digital electronic stethoscope to use.

Zaylee passed her first year, including a placement.

At the start of second year, Zaylee transferred to another university. She asked the new university for support and they directed her to disability services.

They provided a notetaker, but Zaylee and the notetaker ‘didn’t click very well’.

She ended up doing most of her studies online using assistive technology and struggled to pass the practical subject.

Zaylee quit her part-time job and worked in an aged care facility to gain experience. She eventually completed the practical subject and the university offered her a hospital placement.

Zaylee was anxious and asked her lecturer for more support during the placement. They told her someone would be supervising her and she would be fine.

Zaylee asked if she could have written handovers about each patient instead of verbal handovers, but her lecturer told her she wasn’t sure.

‘My first week was chaotic. I was very nervous. I forgot things … I had anxiety. It was my first placement in such a long time.’

Zaylee could hear buzzers going off but struggled to understand what people were saying to her.

‘I never put a patient at risk. I made sure that they were safe. I made sure that I did what I was trained to do, even if it took me a while.’

After a few days Zaylee’s lecturer contacted her telling her she was ‘officially off placement’ because her ‘hearing impairment was too severe’. She told Zaylee to think about other options.

‘I never expected her to tell me that the program was not suitable for me … You don’t just tell someone who’s been spending the last [few] years studying … that they can’t continue their degree because they’re too deaf.’

Zaylee was very upset.

‘I think the hardest thing for me was to tell my family,’ she said. ‘I had a dream. I was dedicated to finishing my degree.’

Zaylee met staff members from the university and hospital. The hospital was willing to work through the issues, but the university wasn’t.

Zaylee asked to do her placement with an Auslan interpreter. The university refused because the interpreter would need a first aid certificate and ‘it was too difficult’.

They also refused to allow her to do her placement in a quieter ward.

‘Maybe I’ll never be able to work in an emergency ward because there’s so many things going on, but I could’ve done my placement in a quieter ward … in a constant care ward or a palliative care ward.’

Zaylee became severely depressed.

‘I lost the one thing I was working on.’

She lost her confidence and felt she had let everyone down. Zaylee had to move back home.

After some time, Zaylee completed a certificate 4 and is now working in a First Nations health clinic.

‘Every day is still a bit of a struggle because of what happened to me … what [the university] did and how it went about it,’ she said.

‘Now I have to double-check my work … I have to write down every little thing, even if it’s something small … And all because I got told that my hearing impairment was too severe.’