39 kids from Dakshina Kannada, 2,500 in State to get free hearing aids

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangaluru, Feb 04, 2015: A total of 39 students accompanied by their parents or guardians took part in the half-day hearing impaired assessment camp organised by Starkey Hearing Foundation in association with the Dakshina Kannada unit of the Indian Red Cross Society (IRCS), at Government School at Gandhinagar here on Tuesday.

A group of five experts representing Starkey, tested all the students and took impression of their ears.

All the students will be provided with pre-programmed BTE (behind the ear) digital hearing aids at a camp scheduled to be held in Bengaluru between March 1 and March 4.

Speaking to Deccan Herald, Sai Prasad, one of the volunteers of Starkey Hearing Foundation and Director, Hearing Health Care Clinic, said that the Foundation will provide free hearing aids to 2,500 children with hearing impaired in Karnataka and they have already identified around 2,000 beneficiaries after conducting assessment camps at various places including Bengaluru, Mysuru, Kollegala, Davanagere, Raichur, Kalaburagi and Vijayapura.

From Mangaluru, the team would proceed to Udupi (Feb 4) and then to Honnavar.Though they could get over 100 beneficiaries in several districts, in Dakshina Kannada, they could get only 39 beneficiaries.

To a query, he said that an audiologist would visit every district once in three months to check for any inconveniences to the beneficaries. Besides Sai Prasad, clinical audiologists Bharathi Kannan and Sai Kiran tested the beneficiaries in Mangaluru. According to a release, the Foundation has so far distributed over 77,000 free hearing aids to children from different parts of the country since 2007.

Starkey Foundation CEO Bill Austin and his team from the USA will be present during the distribution of aids in Bengaluru.