Canadian International
Hearing Services
Courtesy of the
Hearing Foundation of Canada
Reaching out to the hearing impaired abroad.
An abundance of hearing aids in developing countries would mean nothing without providing technological training to people to properly fit hearing aids and maintain them, says Gordon Kerr, founder of Canadian International Hearing Services.
That’s one of the reasons CIHS, a volunteer-run organization providing both hearing aids and training programs in developing countries, is organizing a training and awareness workshop for between 50 and 60 teachers of the deaf from 11 Caribbean countries in August in Barbados.
"My experience has been that very few of the teachers for the deaf accept hearing aids, and they don’t know what to do once a child has a hearing aid. They prefer to use sign language. It’s not their fault. It’s just that they’ve never been exposed to the technology [of hearing aids]," Kerr said.
Kerr, a retired computer studies teacher from Humber College, runs CIHS out of his Weston, Ont. home, where he may have at any one time a collection of several hundred hearing aids, either refurbished or on their way to being repaired, ready to shipment to a group or individual in a developing country.
Kerr, and his colleague, Bud Watson, who also taught computer studies at Humber before retiring five years ago, launched the unique service to developing countries in 1975, with the help of audiologist Don Hood, then head of audiology at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.
Over the years, the trio have travelled to numerous Caribbean countries, as well as India and Mexico, to help local organizations provide hearing aid services that include people trained to keep hearing aids working.
"Bud and I were in India working with a group in Bombay, when we asked to see some of the hearing aids being used. A child took one off and the batteries were so corroded that the thing hadn’t worked in years. Yet they were putting hearing aids on these children every morning. They had no concept of what the hearing aid was doing," Kerr said.
In the past quarter century, Kerr and Watson have arranged training courses for nurses to learn basic technician skills in the administering of hearing aids in the Caribbean. "We also bring them to Canada for three or four months training in basic audiology," Kerr said.
"People write to me from all over the world. They send me audiograms with them so I can determine the hearing aid they need," Kerr said. Hearing aid dealers from across Canada provide the hearing aids, and unused or unwanted hearing instrument equipments, to CIHS, which then sorts out those aids that can be salvaged and those that can’t, Kerr said. "We run them through a testing machine. We salvage maybe 10 per cent of them," he said. The work is done by volunteers; Kerr’s brother, a retired principal in Blind River, Ont., for instance, tests all the hearing aids in his home. Various hearing aid suppliers also do repairs for the organization at no charge.
The group has recycled thousands of hearing aids over the years, he said. It often works with groups such as the Rotary Club or Lions Club in developing countries.
"We’re the only ones in the world doing this type of program," said Watson, from his home in Barrie, Ont. "We’re able to go very quickly to wherever we are needed and wanted. Directors on the board of CIHS include six audiologists who donate their time."
For more information, CIHS Web site: http://www3.sympatico.ca/cihs To e-mail Kerr: kerr@humber-c.on.ca or write to him at 54 Strathburn Blvd., Weston, Ont., Canada, M9M 2K7.
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