Hearing Health for All

Our easyTymp in Mombasa, Kenya

Children and young people all over the world are affected by hearing loss. But unfortunately the medical care is often inadequate in many areas and as it is often the case, the youngest suffer the most under these circumstances. Following the motto of this year's World Hearing Day "Hearing Care For All", we would like to share a short story here, which resulted from the cooperation of our German distribution partner DIATEC with the ENT Doctor Dr. Lutz Eger from Erfurt. Read here a short report by Dr. Lutz Eger about his experiences with the MAICO easyTymp in Mombasa, Kenya.

"From 23.10.-31.10.22 I visited the school EDUCAID ACADEMY in Mombasa in Kenya as a member of a delegation of the association EducAid Kenya. In this context, I wanted to conduct an audiological screening of the kindergarten children and pupils on site. In this way, we wanted to find out how often chronic tympanic effusions requiring therapy could be detected.

Thanks to the MAICO easyTymp hearing test device, which was kindly made available to me by DIATEC for these examinations, the screening could be carried out with minimal time and logistical effort. The unit has proved very suitable for use in an area far from a secure permanent power supply, such as the slum on the outskirts of Mombasa in Kenya.

However, the results of the screening were less encouraging. Out of 36 kindergarten children, eight had bilateral hearing loss, and among the preschool children out of 34, only two. Unfortunately, I had to leave the children like this, as the poverty in the region makes medical or even surgical therapy impossible. In most cases, nature regulates the ear situation over the course of a few years and hearing improves again. What remains is the clear developmental delay in the children's acquisition of language and knowledge."