People with hearing or speech impairments facingemergenciesused torely on family members, neighbors, or community staff to call 120, often missing the critical first four minutes of rescue time. To address this, the YichangMunicipal Emergency Medical Center, developed thebarrier-free emergency platform tailored to the needs of hearing-impaired or speech-impaired individuals, after consulting withthe Municipal Disabled Persons’ Federation, the Municipal Association of Deaf and Hard Hearing, and various community volunteers. The platform includes sign language emoji packs and a dedicated “green life channel” for emergency calls, filling the gap in Yichang’s text and image-based emergency services.
According to an official from the Emergency Medical Center, hearing and speech-impaired individuals can access the platform via the WeChatAppof “120 Life Green Card,” where they can complete personal health records, including medical history, detailedcontacts, and upload the information of their current location. In case of anyemergency, they can choose “Barrier-Free Emergency” on the app’s “Emergency Call” interface, input text, or use pre-recorded sign language emojis to quickly reach 120.(Reporters/Shi GangandMei Yuan, Correspondents/Zheng Yang and Tang Binbin)