A NEWCASTLE man is determined to make life better for hearing aid users.
Jim O’Rourke has been using hearing aids for over 30 years.
For the past 13 years he has volunteered with Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID), helping to repair hearing aids at clinics and care homes.
Jim (82) recently received recognition at the Newry, Mourne and Down District Council Chairperson’s Awards for his volunteering.
“I know the impact that properly maintained hearing aids can have on an individual and their families,” he said.
However, Jim’s personal volunteering experience led him to believe that while the department that provides hearing aids (Audiology) are excellent in diagnosis and provision for hearing aids, insufficient attention is paid to, and information provided about, essential maintenance, particularly for elderly users.
Jim regularly visits residential homes to repair residents’ hearing aids.
“I am a hearing aid user and following my own volunteer experience, and previous career in social work, I am aware of the withdrawal and disengagement tendency of many hearing-impaired persons,” he said.
“In one instance there was a resident in her late 80s who had taken to her bed and not communicated or spoken for weeks.
“But after I fixed her discarded hearing aids and put them in for her, she sat up and began speaking to staff.
“The staff were amazed at the change.”
With the RNID, Jim and the other volunteers provide support in hearing aid maintenance at clinics in Newcastle, Downpatrick, Ballynahinch (in the South Eastern Trust) and Kilkeel, Newry, Rathfriland and Banbridge (in the Southern Trust area).
He enjoys the work and is eager to help but his experience is tempered by frustrations that the service does not fully meet the needs of the users.
One of his frustrations has to do with repairs.
Jim said that approximately two thirds of hearing aids deliver digitally adjusted sound through a thin plastic tube inserted through customised mould, individualised for the specific shape of the user’s inner ear.
The two other sound delivery systems are either an open fit (OF), or a ‘receiver in canal’ (RIC).
The open fit consists of an extremely thin tube ending in a soft plasticised ear bud inserted into the ear canal.
The RIC has a miniature speaker placed in the ear bud and operated by a very thin wire, encased in plastic and connected to the processor.
Repairs tend to involve replacing the part of the hearing aid tubing that travels from the processor to the ear.
But, he adds, spares and replacements can be difficult to receive.
“There is a huge discrepancy that only in the Southern Trust area, Audiology provide their RNID organiser with open fit and wax guard replacements.
“Within the Newry, Mourne and Down district the South Eastern Trust do not provide the RNID organiser or volunteers with these items.
“So you can have a situation where you can’t get replacement parts in Newcastle or Ballynahinch that you would get when you are in Kilkeel,” he added.
This has not always been the case.
When Jim began volunteering, he was provided with a full open fit replacement kit.
He was able to repair open fit hearing aids for four years, until 2017.
After that point volunteers were forbidden to do open fit repairs and now if a hearing aid owner needs a replacement part, they must contact Audiology themselves.
In the full article the Trust explains their position with regards spare parts for hearing aids.
Have you had problems with hearing aid repairs? Or do you know someone who struggles with their hearing aid? We want to hear your story. email r.scott@mourneobserver.com
