Needs Analysıs

Health is a fundamental human right from birth to death. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), all people have the right to an adequate standard of living for the health and well-being of themselves and their families, regardless of age, gender, or economic conditions. It is unacceptable for people with disabilities to be denied healthcare services for any reason. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2008) addressed this issue and stated that people with disabilities have the right to enjoy the highest possible standard of health, without discrimination based on disability. However, many academic studies, as previously mentioned, show that people with disabilities face many inequalities when accessing healthcare services. With the participating organizations, we determined the needs to be addressed by the implementation of our project. These needs that we aim to address are as follows:

• The deaf community faces difficulties in accessing palliative care, and these issues must be resolved.

• Sign language services, such as the hiring of sign language interpreters for long-term and continuous treatments, are expensive and, most of the time, inaccessible to deaf people.

• All workers in the palliative care field should have a basic level of sign language for professional purposes.

• There is no sign language curriculum with a holistic approach focused on palliative care, and this needs to be developed.

• The sign language curriculum should be integrated into vocational training institutions where healthcare workers are trained and may, in the future, work in the palliative care field.

• There is no sign language curriculum focused on palliative care that complements an existing curriculum, and this should be developed.

• The curriculum and learning materials developed should be made available to our target groups on a free and openaccess platform, without time and place restrictions.

• Palliative care workers should be able to benefit from this platform, which offers convenient and unlimited learning at any time.

• The palliative care tools previously listed are essential for the treatment and follow-up of deaf people. There are no palliative care tools in sign language, and they need to be produced.