Statement On PSV Program From Malaysian Federation Of The Deaf; Malaysia’s Deaf Community & Persatuan Belia Pekak Malaysia

With the new regulations regarding e-hailing services and Grab Car, we have to keep in mind the stringent health checks and such. And now, people are finding issues with the new system, particularly those in the Deaf Community. There are factors that are hindering them in receiving their PSV license, and you can read their exact sentiments from the letter below;

Attributed to Malaysian Federation of the Deaf:-

We were pleased that the Ministry of Transport recently made a commitment to strive for inclusiveness. Our disabled community still struggle to find work and it’s encouraging to see the drive for inclusivity, by providing the opportunities for persons with disabilities to have the same chance to work as others. It is truly a focus on their abilities rather than their disabilities.

As a community we are glad with the decision by the Ministry of Transport, to allow the disabled community to undergo the process of getting their PSV licence so that they could continue to earn an income and support their families. However the recent incidents, where  60 members of our community were denied approval mainly because they did not have a hearing aid, is a huge discrimination and lack of understanding on a deaf person.

In the spirit of inclusivity, we do hope that the process and documentation to facilitate the licence process be made available without limitations. Processes such as medical checkups, trainings and examinations should be made available the same way it is for the rest of the peers.  We are hoping for a potential shift, not to think about a person’s disability but rather give each disabled person the freedom and equal access as everyone else.

Attributed to Anthony Chong, Advocate for Malaysia’s Deaf Community and Haymasuthan Periasamy, Persatuan Belia Pekak Malaysia:-

We were recently told that there will be an open day specifically for all OKU drivers to undergo the health checkups as part of the new e-hailing regulations. However, when about 60 deaf drivers went for the medical checks on Wednesday at Hospital Cheras, the doctors refused to approve our medical and the main reason given was just because we were not wearing a hearing aid.

Hearing aids are useless to those who are born with deafness at birth or 100% deafness, regardless how bad their hearing ability is.

Further to that, a single hearing aid device can cost more than RM2,000 and there is no guarantee that it would help those who are legally deaf. It is really bad and doctor does not seem to understand that hearing aids are incompatible to some deaf people.

The deaf community have been driving for years without any problems at all, and it is unacceptable that we are being discriminated against when we are just looking to make an honest living.We have been very patient throughout the past year but we are still not treated like our peers.

It is bad enough that we cannot hear but it seems that the regulators refuse to hear us too. We hope that the government and regulators will finally take us seriously and treat us like any other independent and contributing Malaysian because more than 300 deaf drivers might lose their only source of income by 12 July 2019.

Published on https://liveatpc.com/statement-on-psv-program-from-malaysian-federation-of-the-deaf-malaysias-deaf-community-persatuan-belia-pekak-malaysia/ (24 June 2019)