If your hearing fails, the NHS can help you
I started wearing hearing aids (Mail) 20 years ago, after denying anything was wrong with me for years. the difference it made was very good, but my hearing continued to deteriorate and I was accepted by the NHs to have a cochlear implant this March. I can’t speak highly enough of the NHs and the team I had in southampton; my life has been changed completely. I was slowly losing all my confidence — it’s so easy to disappear into your own little world. I can now sit in my garden and listen to the birds and so many more sounds that I didn’t realise had disappeared. I’m 64, nowhere near old, and do my best to look nice and have regained my social life. I urge anyone who thinks they have a problem to seek advice as early as possible.
PAT ADAM-SMITH, Farnborough, Hants. No one with hearing loss has to spend £4,000 on hearing aids. the NHs ones are just the same; you may not get the choice of colours you would from a private supplier and will have to wait about six weeks for an appointment, but the aids supplied by the NHs are excellent. don’t forget, your hearing won’t stay the same. Like glasses, hearing aids need to be replaced as your hearing changes, so that £4,000 is for aids that will last you only about six to eight years. Getting hearing aids is the important first step to managing your hearing loss, but you may still find noisy social situations and work meetings, etc, very difficult. this is where lip reading and hearing-loss classes come in. In a class, you learn to let your eyes help your ears to fill in the things you miss. You learn strategies and equipment that can help and you meet others with similar problems. these classes provide the I’M Not surprised doctors are having to cut back on subsidising hearing aids to save money for the NHs (Mail). the other day, in the queue at my doctor’s, I was behind a man claiming for new hearing aid batteries. on leaving the surgery behind him, I saw him getting into his top-of-the-range Mercedes — obviously he was in need of help. there’s a hearing time-bomb ticking. Many younger drivers have their car speakers on at full blast, thump, thump, thump, as they drive. they are all going to have hearing problems in future and will expect the NHs to pick up the tab.
PETER SUTCLIFFE, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. only community for the hard-of-hearing. to search for a class in your area, visit www.atlalipreading.org.uk MOLLY BERRY, Marsworth, Herts.