© 2007

HOH Scene in India
by Sudheer Tambe

I first discovered the hearing loss in my 40s. At the time I was working in Malaysia , and one area of the factory was rather noisy. Hence in the beginning the problem was attributed to noisy surroundings, and I limited exposure to that area for some time. However, I realized that the loss persisted and I finally saw an ENT surgeon. A mild loss was discovered, but apart from some tablets to improve blood circulation in the brain, nothing more was done.

After I returned to India , in my 50s, I decided to do something more and finally a very basic BTE hearing aid was bought. This was rather clumsy and difficult to adjust, with the result that instead of helping me, it made the situation worse in that my self-confidence became worse. Finally when I visited the United States for some work in 1992, I bought a regular hearing aid, of analog type, but ITE version. This worked well for some years, until I discovered digital hearing aids, and had my first Siemens programmable ITE version. This of course was much better.

In the meantime, all through the audiologists had decided that since the hearing loss in my left ear was quite severe, there was no benefit of trying to correct that ear, with the result that I was doing most of my hearing through my right ear.

My son, who had done a Master of Science degree in Miami in music engineering, stepped in and advised strongly to use a hearing aid for my left ear as well. When this was done, I found that I started getting substantial directional advantage in conversations. And with a surprise I discovered that the hearing in the left ear also improved.

At present I am 64 and I would describe my hearing loss as moderate to severe in my right ear and much worse in my left ear.  I coped like most people, by first denying that there was a problem, and then trying to blunder through the situations. Even with hearing aids, the situation did not improve straight away. Here the attitudinal problems of society enter the picture. People think that as soon as you wear a hearing aid, your hearing is perfect, so the tedious explanations arise. And all the time you do not want to talk about it.  It is after quite some time that you gather the courage to say that you have a problem and can the other person please adjust accordingly.

For the last two years, again with the prodding from my son, I looked for additional help like speechreading techniques.  I found the Chandrasekhar Institute of Speech and Hearing in Bangalore . This is institute is now 30 years old, and was founded basically to offer medical care to children born with deafness.  This expanded into a full-fledged school for the deaf.  Subsequently an institute for learning for training the audiologists was founded and today boasts [REWORDED] of having one of the best facilities of its kind in India . It trains audiologists towards a degree of B.Sc. (audio) and also M.Sc. (audio).

This institute also has an outpatients’ department where a modern test facility is used to determine the degree of hearing loss. It also has a trust, which funds hearing aids to those who cannot afford them.

At this institute, I had meetings with faculty as to how they can help me.

They had not done anything similar before, but were quite willing to experiment, since speechreading is an integral part of the training of audiologists.

For the last two years intermittently, I have been working with two interns on basic speechreading techniques. [REWORDED] Their approach is not theoretical but what they term as “synthetic,” where the emphasis is on finding the best ways to improve interpretation of conversations. It is working well, but slowly, partly because I am not as energetic about home practice sessions as required.

There is a great deal of material including DVDs available on the Net, and this was used too. I intend to continue these sessions for another year at least, since it also gives me an opportunity to talk to strangers every week and to get used to different accents.

The general scene in India

First of all awareness about the HoH is very low. This is mostly because of our large population in villages has little access to even basic medical facilities, hence getting examined for hearing loss becomes something of a luxury.

Even in cities where facilities are available, there is a great deal of reluctance to admit that one has a hearing problem. Call it social stigma, vanity or whatever. People will readily admit that they have a problem with their sight and get spectacles, but not so with hearing. They will rather live with it with all the subterfuge and with the resultant awkward social situations.

It is only in this century that we are seeing a number of audiologists, advertisements for hearing aids in all major cities. People are at last realizing that it pays to get help and hearing aids.

These are the organizations in India supporting the hearing impaired:

As to the schools for the deaf, there are a number of schools in all major cities with fairly good facilities and trained teachers.

Medical insurance is not common, and is very much limited in scope. Most of the times, it covers only hospitalization in case of a major problem it does not provide for hearing aids, etc., hence buying expensive hearing aids is a major hurdle.

 While I do not claim that the situation of the hearing impaired is satisfactory in India , I would point out that the acts are in place, and the framework exists. A great deal of work from the government side as well as from the side of the voluntary organizations is required.

 As I said above this piece by no means gives authoritative information on the Indian scene, but is only a collection of impressions by a hearing impaired citizen.

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