Parents have been urged to pay serious attention to the hearing health of their new born babies. Twenty five (25) neonates out of seventy two (72) screened within three days at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of the Tamale Teaching Hospital were referred in one or more ears for further assessment and case management.
The Clinical Audiologist and Principal Nursing Officer at TTH, Madam Angelina Ayingura Anaafo, said the figure is alarming and a source of worry and accordingly implored parents to pay a particular attention to the health of their babies.
“In the last three days, we were able to screen about seventy two babies and out this 72 babies, 47 of them making a percentage of 65% had both ears passed the screening test that we did. And out of this 72 again, we had 12 of them representing 17% referring in both ears (bilateral) based on the screening test that we did and then 13 of them representing about 18% also referring in one ear (unilateral); so if we’re talking about the referrals – we can combine the one ear and both ears together and that’s about 25 new born babies referred and this is very significant considering the fact that this screening was done in just three days” she asserted.
In an exclusive interview with the Northern Regional Correspondent of THE CUSTODIAN, the TTH Clinical Audiologist indicated, “Hearing is the only way that the child could also get to learn language and speak and able to acquire education and so if a child cannot hear, it means that growth and development which is related to language acquisition and intellectual development would all be affected.”
She added, “That is why we need to pay attention to these babies by screening their ears, especially, these babies are at NICU and everyone knows that they are at high risk of hearing lose because, one, they are preterm babies and its believe that preterm babies sometimes their organs might not be developed to the stage they were supposed to before they were born, so the ear structure itself might not be developed very well.”
The other thing she explained, “Is that, they have other health conditions – some have neonatal jaundice, which is a risk factor for hearing lose, some of them have asphyxia; some of them even the low birth weight in itself is a risk factor and most them are also on medication – antibiotics which some of them might autotoxin and it can affect the hearing organ.”
World Hearing Day
Dr Karim Adam, Specialist at the Tamale Teaching Hospital Ear, Nose and Throat Unit (ENT), in separate interview said the ENT department in commemoration of this year’s World Hearing Day carried out an outreach to screen residents of Tamale at Dohinayili.
He disclosed a total number of four hundred and five (405) clients were screened during the exercise and seventy two of them were referred to the TTH for further examination. Two persons he said are expected to undertake surgery due to the extent of their conditions.
“The referred cases, a lot were having earwax in their ears and some were even to the extent having kiloats in the ears and among the referrals, two of them are undergo surgery. Hadn’t because we moved to the community, these 72 number wouldn’t have come to the hospital, and based on the assessment we did, the children were the most affected especially primary school children” he revealed.
