CHILDREN BORN with hearing problems can wait up to five years to have hearing aids fitted because of “serious shortcomings” in audiology services across the State, according to a new report.
The report published yesterday by the HSE, following a review chaired by a UK expert, found significant gaps in services across the country, inadequate staffing levels and unacceptable waiting times to access services. It found that access to good authoritative audiological assessment and intervention “is patchy at best and non-existent in some areas”.
There were more than 22,000 adults and children on community-based audiology waiting lists in October 2009, according to the report, with about 10,000 of them awaiting an initial assessment and a similar number awaiting review.
In terms of hospital-based audiology services, the report says children can be waiting for these for between three and 36 months, while adults can be waiting anywhere between three weeks and 48 months.
The HSE said it believes the 10,000 figure for those awaiting initial review is “grossly inflated” and it is now validating waiting list data.
Blackspot areas where there are gaps in services include Galway, where attempts have been made to recruit an audiologist for seven years without success.
Audiologists are not trained in Ireland and this is part of the problem. The report says staffing issues will never be properly solved until a training programme for specialists is established here.
The National Audiology Reviewestimates that audiology staffing levels will have to be doubled to about 140 to 150 posts and that investment in services will also have to be doubled. About €11 million a year is spent on the service.
The report says the median age of diagnosis of congenital childhood hearing loss in the State is very late. Data from the southeast showed “the median age of intervention for permanent congenital hearing loss to be 24 months for children with severe and profound hearing loss and 60 months for children with moderate hearing loss”.
The report recommends an increase in the overall budget for modern, good quality digital signal processing hearing aids and that a national newborn hearing screening programme be put in place.
Brian Murphy, national primary care services manager with the HSE, said he hoped this would be in place in all areas by the end of 2012. The first phase of the programme will begin later this month when screening begins at Cork University Hospital.
Hearing deficits not identified or addressed in a timely manner impact directly on communication ability, constrain development in children, lead to limitations in everyday activities and restrict personal and social participation. “In the case of children, these effects may be devastating for the child and family,” the report says.
Lack of timely intervention also increases later costs in health, education and social care. “The current service inadequacies represent poor value for taxpayers money,” it adds. Prof John Bamford, chair of the review group, said children never catch up after a delayed intervention.
Reasons why services are in such a state include a lack of understanding by planners and policymakers of the population needs. There is also a lack of investment in facilities and staff, a lack of national clinical leadership and structured clinical governance and historical carry-over from a non-unified health system, the review found.
The HSE says it will implement the report’s recommendations.