By Hamu Madzedze
Governments have been called upon to take steps to integrate ear and hearing care within primary health care systems as part of measures to improve hearing care.
This call was made by the World Health Organisation (WHO) following its release of new technical guidance on hearing aid service delivery approaches for low- and middle-income settings.
This document is designed to provide practical guidance to countries in developing hearing aid services in areas that lack human resources for assessing hearing as well as fitting and maintaining hearing aids.
WHO highlighted the need for governments to implement community based approaches that bring services closer to the people and lead initiatives to raise awareness and mitigate stigma related hearing loss.
Technical lead for ear and hearing care at WHO Dr Shelly Chadha said raising awareness within societies and addressing stigma related to ear and hearing care is important in improving hearing care provision .
"Any effort to improve hearing care provision through health system strengthening must be accompanied by work to raise awareness within societies about the issue and address stigma related to ear and hearing care",said Dr Chadha.
Dr Chadha stressed the need to address misperceptions amongst primary health care providers who at times consider this to be a "specialised" or difficult to provide service resulting in failure to identify and treat even those ear and hearing conditions that do not require specialist care.
"These misperceptions and stigmatising mindsets limit the efforts aimed at improving hearing and ear care" said Dr Chadha.
Meanwhile WHO Director for Non-communicable Diseases Dr Bente Mikkelsen said over 400 million people with hearing loss could benefit from using hearing devices however less than 20% of these needs are fulfilled due to lack of human resource, lack of policies and dedicated finances.
"Given the global shortage of ear and hearing care specialists , we have to rethink how we can traditionally deliver services",said Dr Mikkelsen
Dr Mikkelsen added that unaddressed hearing loss is a global challenge and incurs an estimated cost of US1 trillion dollars annually.
The release of the new guide coincides with the marking of the World Hearing Day being held on the 3rd of this month under the theme"Changing Mindsets:Lets make ear and hearing care a reality for all".This year's theme highlights the importance of correcting misconceptions of hearing loss that are common among the general public and primary health providers.
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