It's a pretty simple example - how do you phone a dentist's office and make an appointment if you live with a hearing impairment?
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There's now a range of options for people to communicate, but the National Relay Service makes it easier for hearing impaired people, or people who have trouble communicating verbally, to live a normal life.
Basically, the service employs people to read messages from people who are deaf or have other issues over the phone, and then communicate what is received back to them - this could be through text, Auslan through a video call, or other options using landline phones, text telephones, or computers.
A call centre for the service, operated by Concentrix, opened in Mount Helen in November, and has been slowly expanding and bringing more technologies online.
According to service delivery manager David Flanagan, the centre was operating smoothly and ramping up.
"Over the last couple of weeks, Monday to Friday, (there has been) 1400-plus calls," he said.
"You and I don't have an in-between when you try to make a phone call to anyone.
"We want to make sure that anyone who is deaf or hard of hearing, or has a special need, has that same capability and the same service available to them.
"It's about trying to have a service available for people to talk and communicate the way they're comfortable with."
Federal Communications Minister Paul Fletcher visited the site on Thursday, and said it was a vital service which had created 90 jobs in Ballarat.
"Those are essentially jobs that have come to Ballarat that weren't here before, it's a $22 million a year contract, so it's a big deal," he said.
"There are about 10,000 people in Australia who regard Auslan as their first language, those are people born profoundly deaf.
"One of the capabilities of this service is video relay chat, so the person at one end of the phone is speaking and hearing voice, but the Auslan user is seeing on the screen the hand signals being generated by the relay officer at the other end - the relay officer speaks both languages."
Ballarat is one of two sites in Australia for the service, the other being in Brisbane, and is the only one operating 24 hours.
Mr Flanagan said it was providing skilled employment in Ballarat.
"The skillset, if people hadn't got it, they've been able to acquire it within our training profile parameters, it's making sure that you can communicate appropriately and empathise where necessary, but by and large, it's transposition - you don't play a part in the conversation, you just allow someone else to have it," he said.
Concentrix had won the contract because it committed to introducing new technologies, Mr Fletcher added.
"We've been systematically bringing on different types of calls, there's one more group to come on, and that will get it to what we expect will be the continuing level of activity, which will be a bit higher again," he said.
"The contract asks them to keep updated on technologies as they change, and how customer behaviour changes across all the clients they serve - in the way people are using chat to engage call centres.
"There will be significant opportunities, I think, to evolve and improve it."
To use the NRS, phone 1300 555 727 for voice relay, 133 677 for TTY, and 0423 677 767 for SMS, or visit the website.
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