The Morrison Government is providing $30 million over four years to protect the hearing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children through its comprehensive Hearing Assessment Program.
\n\u201cPoor hearing has profound effects on a child\u2019s ability to learn from and interact with others and can leave them isolated, disengaged and facing challenges at home,\u201d said Indigenous Health Minister Ken Wyatt.
\n\u201cOur Indigenous children have much higher rates of hearing loss than other Australian children, largely due to complications from middle ear infection, otitis media.
\n\u201cChildren with undiagnosed hearing loss tend to fall behind in school due to delayed speech and language development, which can have a devastating effect on their future employment opportunities and their chance of living happy, successful lives.\u201d
\nThe program will provide ear health checks and diagnostic hearing assessments, as well as follow-up treatment for children in the years before they start school so that they are able to hear in the classroom.
\nMinister Wyatt said that he has asked the Department of Health to work with Australian Hearing to develop delivery arrangements for the diagnostic hearing services.
\nConsultation with stakeholders during co-design for the program has identified Australian Hearing as the organisation best placed to provide the scale and quality of diagnostic audiology services required for this important program.
\n\u201cInvolving Australian Hearing in the program will streamline hearing service delivery for children and their families by providing timely fitting of hearing devices for those children who need them,\u201d said Minister Wyatt.
\n\u201cAt the same time, other Morrison Government funded ear health campaigns will be strengthened to support the Hearing Assessment Program by providing follow-up specialist and allied health services.\u201d
\nThe Minister said that in some areas, primary health workers needed more training and experience in providing ear and hearing assessments, especially for very young children.
\n\u201cAs part of their duties, Australian Hearing audiologists working with the new program will provide on the job training to health workers employed in primary care clinics,\u201d Minister Wyatt said.
\n\u201cOver time, this will build health workers\u2019 skills and help embed ear health checks in everyday health service delivery for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.\u201d
\nIn addition, the Morrison Government is providing up to $200,000 in funding in 2018-19 to train health professionals in delivering tympanometry to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.
\nThe Hearing Assessment Program will support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children to grow up with good hearing and the advantages this brings.
\nThe program will be targeted at rural and remote communities.
\nThis new investment brings Morrison Government funding for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ear and hearing health activities to over $95 million (2018-19 to 2021-22).
\nThanks to our Government\u2019s strong economic management, $160 million has also been committed to the Indigenous Health Research Fund which includes a commitment to end avoidable deafness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Morrison Government is providing $30 million over four years to protect the hearing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children through its comprehensive Hearing Assessment Program. \u201cPoor hearing has profound effects on a child\u2019s ability to learn from and interact with others and can leave them isolated, disengaged and facing challenges at home,\u201d said … Continue reading “$30 Million Program to Protect Indigenous Children's Hearing”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2736\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}