Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
PARENTS CAMPAIGNING FOR bilateral cochlear implants for Irish children are concerned about the ‘backlog’ and waiting time for cochlear operations.
They hope that it is addressed as if bilateral implants are introduced as standard, there could be long waiting times for children who only have a certain period during which they are suitable for the implants to improve their hearing.
Members of the Happy New Ear campaign recently met with Junior Minister Kathleen Lynch, and continue to work on meeting the Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Health Minister James Reilly as part of their campaign.
It is hoped that Minister James Reilly will meet the parents at some point in the near future, perhaps utilising the Oireachtas Health and Children Committee for this purpose.
Currently, it is typical practice to fit Irish children diagnosed with needing cochlear implants with one implant. In the vast majority of countries, it is practice to fit bilateral implants, so that both ears benefit. The Happy New Ear parents want bilateral implants to be fitted as standard and are campaigning for this to be introduced.
Happy New Ear
Deanna Cairns of the Happy New Ear campaign, whose son Billy has one cochlear implant, said that the meeting with Minister Kathleen Lynch went well.
“She was very nice,” said Cairns. “She just said she couldn’t make any commitments – we understand that”. The health committee has invited the Happy New Ear campaign to address them before the end of June, which Cairns said was positive news for the campaign.
The parents are currently waiting on a business plan report for Beaumont Hospital – which carries out the cochlear implants – by June 13, which will give an insight into the plans and equipment that are needed for bilateral implants to be available in the hospital.
They are waiting for this year’s Budget to be announced to find out if a bilateral implant scheme can be introduced using special funding.
Cairns said Ms Laura Viani of the National Cochlear Implant Programme said she needs to know as soon as possible if the scheme can be introduced, so that Beaumont can begin to put the resources in place to deal with the influx of new patients.
Currently, there is a waiting list for single implants, and Cairns said that parents are concerned about this and hope the backlog can be addressed.
“It is going to be a major concern how are they going to cope with the backlog,” said Cairns. “There are a lot of kids and time is running out.”
The longer it’s left, the bigger the backlog.
She said it is “a case of just keeping the pressure on” so that “[the government] realise we are not going to go away”.
When it comes down to your kids you are going to keep fighting for them.
When the parents met Minister Lynch, they handed in a petition that contained 3,200 signatures. They hope to eventually meet the Taoiseach – “we only want a few minutes”, said Cairns.
She said her son Billy “is doing great” after a recent operation on his cochlear implant. He has recently acquired three more words and different sounds.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
This should be prioritised. This is the sort of thing that the HSE should be focusing efforts on.
Along with everything else
If this is is standard practice in the vast majority of countries then this would imply that Ireland is not adhering to best practice. Hearing impairment has a significant impact on language development and there are sensitive periods in which it develops. This should coincide with the implantation of TWO cochlear implants to maximise the child’s ability to acquire language.
Until ministers families are treated the same as public patients there will be little or no improvement in the health service.
If you can afford private treatment you don’t see and are not affected by the health service we have in Ireland.
On behalf of the campaign team at Happy New Ear I would like to thank everyone for their comments and feedback on this article. We have a policy of not commenting on public forums or answering individual arguments. We have done our research, and it is overwhelmingly in favour of bilateral implants. We are at an advanced stage of negotiations for the introduction of a program in 2014, and have the backing of our Government and the HSE. Thank you!!
Niamh, the UK recently published the results of a study they completed reviewing their bilateral programme (introduced in 2009). The results are overwhelmingly in favor of bilateral implantation. One key section shows children implanted bilaterals have a higher related quality of life than those with single implants however there are many more.
Interestingly, it also states the benefits of a second are reduced the longer the gap between first & second implants with anyone over 5 years of age being most impacted, this may explain why the older members of the deaf community do not get as excited about this wonderful technology.
These devices are very expensive and I have not seen evidence that even one is given to children by the state at no cost in most countries. It is in fact quite rare for two to be implanted as far as I can see. Once a cochlear implant is in place that ear can no longer use a standard digital hearing aid any longer, so if the child grows up and decides to reject CI they have no option to use standard hearing aids. We need to ask ourselves the difficult question why many people who are members of the Deaf community reject Cochlear implants…
Robert… you are not correct.
Please take some time to read http://2ears2hear.kiwi.nz Particularly the menu entitled “Bilateral CIs”. It will correct you on what you have said.
Two specific points:
>If a child needs cochlear implants, hearing aids are useless to them already
>The trend currently is for many in the Deaf community to get cochlear implants. In a lot of cases this is resulting in an exodus from the Deaf community as people can hear and speak and become part of the mainstream hearing community. Those that reject CIs tend to be fearful of losing the community they currently have.
Robert and Niamh, as professionals in the area, I am disappointed at your lack of current knowledge on the subject and your willingness to make ill-informed comments on a subject that you clearly do not fully understand. To suggest that a deaf implanted child would reject their CI in later years in favour of using traditional hearing aids from which they derive no auditory benefit is just ludicrous, As parents and advocates for our deaf children, I assure you we have informed ourselves fully on the advances in audiology and we do not take our decisions lightly. Neither do we dismiss the views of the Deaf community but expect the same tolerance as they receive. We accept that the devices are expensive but to describe it as “not cost-effective” to provide two CIs is to put a price on a child’s future. What is YOUR child’s future worth? We certainly do “recognise the great strides that have been happening in audiology over the past few years” and resent your implication that we are simply “jumping on the ill-informed band wagon”. I suggest you might consider who is ill-informed.
Orla, thank you for your feedback. I am aware of children who do not benefit from implants for various reasons. I am also aware of teenagers who have demanded explantation of an implant. The issues are not as cut and dry as you indicate and I am aware of the difficult choices that are made. I am not against bilateral implants, but I am critical of a gung ho approach. I also see much of the research is funded by the companies manufacturing the devices.
Robert… if you are a professional in this area you should realise that it is unwise to base your views on individual cases. You should look at the big mainstream studies.
Of course there will be cases where outcomes are sub-optimal (its called a bell curve!). However the vast majority of CI users extract huge benefits from their special ears.
If you are going to publicly comment in this area, you should at the very least make sure you are well versed in the current literature. You should also not lead off your assertions with patently ridiculous statements like… “Once a cochlear implant is in place that ear can no longer use a standard digital hearing aid any longer, so if the child grows up and decides to reject CI they have no option to use standard hearing aids.”. You know full well that a standard criteria for receiving a CI is that HAs are not effective. To suggest a CI takes away an option that is already gone is pretty ill-informed.
I would strongly recommend you read…
http://2ears2hear.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/language-outcomes-after-cochlear-implantation.pdf
If you are asserting anything outside what this excellent literature review states, you had better have a truckload of research to prove otherwise. To do otherwise is unprofessional and a disservice to anyone patient you might work for.
Profoundly deaf from birth by way of rubella, if there is a teeny bit of hearing, surgeons will refuse a C.I.
Its great to see big strides in arena of hearing impairment, hearing aids!
Young children will have a much brighter future. :)
Hopefully someone see’s sense here and follows best international practice by providing two implants as the rule. A good campaign worthy of support.
While there is some evidence that children with bilateral cochlear implants can hear more speech sounds in noisy social situations, there is evidence that there is no difference on quality of life between children with unilateral versus bilateral implants. There is also evidence that children with unilateral cochlear implants and a hearing aid on the non-implanted ear perform better than those with bilateral implants. The evidence states that it is not cost effective to perform bilateral cochlear implants. The biggest impact on speech development is the age at implantation. With the recent implementation of new born hearing screening for all babies born these children are being diagnosed earlier than ever before. People should recognise the great strides that have been happening in audiology over the past few years instead of jumping on the ill-informed band wagon to give out about it.
Niamh… again I would recommend you read http://2ears2hear.kiwi.nz and become more informed.
You should specifically read some of the papers on this page…
http://2ears2hear.kiwi.nz/resources/research-papers/
They would strongly disagree that there is no quality of life difference between unilateral and bilateral CIs.
I would also suggest you ask why the UK issued the NICE guidelines mandating bilateral implantation. They did this because it is cost effective to do simultaneous bilateral implantations. Their recent audit shows that has had a remarkably positive effect on the outcomes for these children.
This paper here provides a really good and simple overview of what the modern research says…
http://2ears2hear.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/language-outcomes-after-cochlear-implantation.pdf
have your say