Hearing is precious and should be cared for

I was born with mild hearing loss and use hearing aids, but I’ve always thought of myself as very lucky in that it did not hamper me much through school, university or my career: until I became a civil servant!

At the age of 31 in 2004, when I started in the Scottish Government, was the first time I had ever worked in an open plan environment. Despite having only “mild” hearing loss, I couldn’t hear the people sitting near me over the background keyboard, printer and chatter noise. In the early days of a new job I missed instructions and key information. Working from home since Covid has been mostly positive for me, without that background noise and using headphones for meetings where I can adjust the volume.

This year’s World Hearing Day theme is “Ear and Hearing Care for All!”. Around 1 in 6 people have some form of hearing loss. Many people are born hearing impaired, but a significant number of people acquire it later in life.

60% of hearing loss cases can be dealt with without anything other than primary care or audiological services. However, integration of hearing care into primary care could be more efficient and save money for countries developing universal health care (UHC). For those with established UHC systems, it could be a means of saving money and it would also save money for patients in countries with for-profit healthcare too.

This would involve governments, healthcare managers and clinicians working together in order to realise those benefits for all patients regardless of the economy of a country.

Hearing is precious; governments, clinicians - and you - need to look after it. That can be done in a way that is efficient AND caring if the political will is there.

Some steps reps and members can follow to support deaf members at work:

• Ensure deaf members know they are entitled to reasonable adjustments to support them at work under the Equality Act 2010;
• Ask if the deaf member needs any assistance to enable them to attend work meetings and events such as access to a hearing loop and/or BSL interpreter;
• Promote British Sign Language and Deaf Awareness days and weeks at work;
• Set up a learning event to teach colleagues basic sign language – this could also be a recruitment tool and a way of encouraging members to get more active in their union.