10/15/2024
Hello, I am Jocelynn Johnson, president of the ECCOE board of directors. ECCOE has exciting news that will impact the whole Deaf community of Manitoba.
We are thrilled to announce that after months of negotiation, as of October 1st 2024, the Province of Manitoba will be covering interpreter costs through ECCOE Interpreting for a number of different booking types that previously were not covered. We will have no limit on how many bookings someone can have.
The full list of interpreting coverage, the province will now be providing interpreters through ECCOE for the following service providers:
Optometrists
Physiotherapy
Chiropractors
Dental (including orthodontics and periodontics specialists etc.)
Private Counselling
Private mental health services
CPAP fittings (when not covered by Manitoba Health)
Financial Meetings (when not at banks, which are responsible for arranging their own interpreters) – including income tax, bankruptcy, investments, private financial advisors etc.
Legal Appointments (When not billed to justice, as these are arranged separately) for example meeting a lawyer for wills etc.
Job Interviews if the business cannot provide an interpreter.
Please note that family weddings/funerals/personal events will still be billed to the person who requests them and are not covered by the province under this contract. There is no change to services that are already covered for example, Manitoba Health, or meetings at the Manitoba Government offices and so forth.
We do ask that because this is a very new service, your service providers may not know about it yet and may be confused if you ask for an interpreter. When you book your appointment with your service provider, please contact [email protected] to arrange an interpreter, do not wait for the business to do it for you. Once we get the message out to more businesses this will become more familiar to them. We will be adding more information to our website about this to help you explain this to your service providers.
If you are unsure if your appointment type is covered, please reach out to ECCOE at [email protected] and they can let you know. As always for best results, please book the interpreter as soon as possible. If you have any questions, reach out! Please share this with others in the Deaf community of Manitoba.
