Call out for new hearing tech

WITHIN the first few weeks of their life, most babies across Victoria are put through the newborn hearing screening program.

If there’s cause for concern, the infants are referred to one of the state’s diagnostic centres, of which Ballarat Health Services is one.

But audiologist Talia Pumpa said BHS’s current newborn hearing diagnostic technology is 13 years old, slow, and unreliable, and theirs is the only regional clinic without “crucial” up-to-date equipment.

“At the moment, our current equipment can do one ear, one sound at a time, and it takes probably an hour-plus to do one test… but babies only sleep for a short period of time, and if they wake up, we can’t keep testing,” she said.

“The machine is starting to break down and unfortunately can no longer be repaired.”

With that in mind, the BHS Foundation has launched an end-of-financial-year tax appeal aiming to raise enough funds to purchase a cutting-edge newborn hearing diagnostic machine.

“This equipment will be a lot faster, a lot more accurate, a lot more reliable… doing four sounds, both ears, at the same time within 20 to 30 minutes,” Ms Pumpa said

“The likelihood of getting full results is so much higher, which is the biggest, most important thing.”

In Ballarat in 2020, 26 newborns were referred to the local diagnostic centre, and 11 of them had hearing loss. On average, the clinic sees one to two babies per fortnight for this testing.

Ms Pumpa said the earlier audiologists intervene, the better.

“It’s clearly documented that if you can have intervention by six months of age, the gap between these children and their normally-hearing peers is pretty much non-existent, and they get normal speech and language development,” she said.

“If it’s not picked up early, it’s normally not picked up until they’re three-to-four years old and they miss that crucial window of opportunity for speech and language development.”

When two-and-a-half-year-old George was born at Ballarat Base Hospital, the newborn hearing screening program, and then diagnostic technologies, identified his permanent hearing loss.

Mum Jenna Freeman said he had his own hearing aids by 10 weeks old.

“We are so proud of George. He’s a really resilient, happy little kid. To think he only missed out on 10 weeks of hearing, and now he’s got his hearing aids, he isn’t missing out on anything,” she said.

“The babies have to be asleep for testing, so if we’d had to travel to Melbourne or Geelong, and then get the baby settled, and then to sleep, and then have the testing done, it would have been very hard.

“We didn’t realise how lucky we were to have to only go 10 minutes down the road to get to all the appointments. We’re really so grateful to have all the services around us to have had such a positive outcome.

“It’s a credit to having everything in the town, and the new equipment will make it even faster and easier. That would be amazing, not only for the babies but for the parents as well.”

Grampians Health chief operating officer community and aged care Craig Wilding encourages the community to support the appeal.

“Help us to continue to provide this high-quality service to our youngest patients within our region,” he said.

“When a family receives news that their newborn has hearing loss, this can be a very stressful time for them. It’s important that our families can receive the care they need without having to travel.”

Visit bhs-tax-appeal-2022.raisely.com to donate.