Hear the world around. Odesa

32 million children worldwide suffer from severe hearing loss. According to statistics from the Ministry of Health, there are over a million people with hearing impairments in Ukraine and over a hundred thousand people with a deafness diagnosis. Almost every day we have to overcome various barriers because in our country the overwhelming majority of institutions and institutions are designed for those who hear and speak well. It turns out that society pretends that people with hearing impairments simply do not exist. 

Hearing impairment manifests itself in 1-3 children out of 1000 born. In 20-40 children out of 1000 newborns who were in the intensive care unit, deafness or severe hearing impairment develops. The modern development of technology and the creation of appropriate diagnostic equipment make it possible to detect hearing impairment at any age, even in newborns. Hearing screening in newborns and young children is a standardized, automated hearing test designed to quickly and reliably identify children with a high probability of hearing impairment.

For today in Ukraine, there is no state support of echo screening of newborns. Therefore, hearing impairment can be diagnosed at the age of 4-5 years. Late diagnosis of hearing loss is a lost opportunity to make cochlear implantation in a timely manner and to minimize the lag in the child's hearing and speech development. As a solution to this problem, it is proposed to introduce mandatory screening in the first days after the birth of the child while still in the hospital. To do this, we need technical support of maternity hospitals with diagnostic devices, conduct staff training and create a unified database in Ukraine to see the whole picture and track young patients born with hearing impairments or at risk. 

We are starting a program for the purchase of screening devices in all regional hospitals and maternity hospitals in Ukraine. The fifth will be the Reznik Odessa City Children's Hospital. If you are not indifferent to the fate of Ukrainian children, join the project. Together we can make it happen!