New aids no good for some
HEARING-LOSS sufferers say they are not being listened to and are forced to use unsuitable hearing aid devices.
Patients with analogue hearing aids have been told they must adapt to the new digital version, despite some finding them ineffective.
Digital hearing aids are tuned to an individual's needs and amplify conversation, while cutting out background noise.
Analogue hearing aids simply amplify all sounds.
In 2000 the Department of Health introduced a modernisation programme, to phase out analogue in favour of digital.
Social worker and musician, Andrew Oates, 29, can hear very little without his hearing aid. But, while he has successfully used an analogue version since the age of six, he struggles with a digital version.
He said his digital hearing aid interprets the music as background noise and when more than one person is speaking, voices become "jumbled and distorted."
He said: "The decision to stop supplying analogue hearing aids is disabling people, rather than enabling them.
"I feel let down that I am no longer able to access the type of hearing aid that I have always worn and am instead being forced to go through large amounts of stress to get used to a new type of hearing aid, which in my opinion, is not as good."
Andrew, from Gillingham, said he first tried a digital hearing aid two years ago, but could not get on with it. He managed to get an analogue hearing aid on the NHS but it is now faulty and he has been told he cannot have an analogue replacement.
Many manufacturers have stopped making the old-style aids and, bought privately, they can cost hundreds of pounds.
Andrew said: "Everything sounded different and odd.
"To do my job, I need to feel confident about my hearing and my speech but, with a digital hearing aid, I am not."
With his wife, Anna, he has set up a blog and Facebook group to campaign to keep analogue hearing aids.
He said: "We have come across some people who no longer wear hearing aids after they were told they had to have digital, and could not get on with them."
A spokesman for Medway NHS said it is aware that a small number of patients have experienced difficulty adjusting to the change.
She said: "We are committed to doing all it can to support patients and will look at each case individually."
Comments
by Lisa Dillon, Chatham
Saturday, September 25 2010, 12:15PM
“Why is the spokesperson for Medway NHS so dismissive? It's not about experiencing "difficulty adjusting to the change". That makes it sound like the let down patients are just grumbling about the price of stamps going up. This is about digital devices being unsuitable for some people's hearing needs. It's about patients being denied choice, and told they must use something that effectively disables them. For all the use it is to him, Mr Oates may just as well have been offered a prosthetic leg as a digital device for his hearing needs.”