Senate hearing finds gaps in services for people who are deaf; agencies pledge records and protocol changes

A joint public hearing of two Puerto Rico Senate committees on social welfare and human rights scrutinized whether government agencies followed laws meant to ensure access for people who are deaf, focusing on the case of Janet Viera Grau.

Department of the Family officials told the committees they had intervened in the Viera Grau case beginning in 2018, described two safety plans and a series of referrals to shelters and medical care, and said the agency has long‑standing contracts for sign‑language services and ongoing staff training. Subsecretary Ramón Burgos Bermúdez and AFAM administrator Glenda Gerena Ríos said a protocol specifically for serving people who are deaf is nearly final and that they will provide the contract, invoices and the family’s case file to the committee within five business days at the committee’s request.

Senators pressed agency witnesses about multiple apparent gaps. Lawmakers including Ana Irma Rivera Alazén and María de Lourdes Santiago asked for exact timestamps, invoices and the full case file, and challenged the Department’s wording that an interpreter had been available “in all moments.” The Department accepted the request and said interpreters were used in planning and most interventions but acknowledged there were emergency moments when an interpreter had not been present.

Civil‑society witnesses framed the issue as systemic. David Figueroa Betancourt, president of the Coalición Amplia de Diversidad Funcional, said the Viera Grau case exposed failures across several agencies to operationalize statutes passed for the deaf community and urged the legislature to create an office‑link to coordinate services and enforcement. Legal aid speakers (Sociedad para Asistencia Legal) urged procedural changes in court practice, including video recording when interpreters are used so the record preserves interpreted statements and protects due process.

The Police negotiado described existing protocols for child‑abuse and institutional‑neglect investigations and said trained sign‑language agents are assigned across the force’s 13 policing areas. Police representatives said they had no record of prior referrals from the Department of the Family in the Viera Grau matter and committed to delivering requested operational records to the committee within five days.

The Defensoría de las Personas con Impedimentos endorsed the resolutions and highlighted three recurring gaps: lack of a reliable census of deaf residents, absence of a standardized profession and registry for certified sign interpreters, and insufficient interagency enforcement. José Antonio Montalvo Vera said his office has been working with the Department of the Family on protocol drafts but that the Defensoría had not opened a separate investigative docket into the Viera Grau death; he told senators his office would provide the committee its recent statistical summaries and strategic plans within ten days.

What the hearing produced: (1) agency commitments to deliver contract records, invoices and the Viera Grau case file within five business days; (2) police and Defensoría pledges to share training rosters and strategic plans (Defensoría requested ten days to compile documents); and (3) a legislative agenda from witnesses and senators that ranges from better data collection to establishing an office‑link and stronger enforcement tools.

The committees did not adopt formal sanctions or votes during the session. Senators directed staff to follow up on the promised document deliveries and on scheduling additional witnesses, including staff from the hospital and APS/San Juan Capestrano referenced in the testimony. The hearing will form part of the committees’ ongoing investigation into compliance with statutes including Law 136 (1996) and related measures.