Cochlear within cooee
ALL Sandra King ever wanted was for her beautiful daughter to be able to hear her say “I love you”.
Eleven days after giving birth to her third child Ms King learned daughter Lily, now seven, was profoundly deaf.
The Clifton Springs family had no history of deafness, but now know Lily’s hearing loss was genetic.
Desperate to give their daughter the opportunity to hear, the Kings had Lily assessed for a cochlear implant.
Aged just 10 months, she had a 4½-hour surgery to insert the implant.
The family spent the first 12 months after Lily’s operation travelling regularly to Melbourne for audiology and assessment appointments.
“When you realise she is profoundly deaf and the cochlear implant has a 99 per cent success rate, there was no choice,” Ms King said.
“We want to give Lily the opportunity to hear.
“I wanted her to hear me say ‘I love you’ — and now, yes, absolutely she can.”
The Kings hope yesterday’s opening of Victoria’s first regional Cochlear Care Centre outside of East Melbourne will give more children and adults access to lifechanging cochlear care.
The new Geelong Cochlear Care Centre is expected to help 400 cochlear recipients, who were previously undertaking up to 12 trips to East Melbourne in their first year, access critical services closer to home.
Health Minister Jill Hennessy said the centre, in partnership with the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital, had the potential to help thousands of people living with hearing loss.
“This groundbreaking new centre will help more Victorians receive the life-changing assistance they need to hear,” Ms Hennessy said.
She said the Little Ryrie St centre would continue to lift Victoria’s status as a world leader in diagnosing and treating hearing loss.
“The Geelong Cochlear Care Centre will offer worldclass support and provide more Victorians with severe to profound hearing loss access to quality hearing health services, regardless of where they live.”
Eye and Ear hospital chief operating officer and chief nurse officer Jenni Bliss said close to one-in-four of the East Melbourne clinic’s patients lived more than 100km from the centre.
“This new centre provides a crucial service to the 400 active cochlear implant recipients living in Western Victoria, ensuring that more adults and children can access care without excessive travel time and cost,” Ms Bliss said.
Ms King, who has volunteered at Eye and Ear, said her chatty daughter was proof that cochlear implants were life changing.
She said Lily was hitting all the benchmarks for children her age with no hearing loss.