18th ANNUAL EARLY HEARING DETECTION & INTERVENTION MEETING
March 3-5, 2019 • Chicago, IL
10/24/2016 | 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM | Audiology for Malawi: Creating a Sustainable Audiology Department in a Developing Country's Healthcare System | BGPOP Building 4A/B/C
Audiology for Malawi: Creating a Sustainable Audiology Department in a Developing Country's Healthcare System
In 2014, Sound Seekers embarked on a four-year project to create a comprehensive audiology department at the largest public hospital in Blantyre, Malawi. The project included the following aims: a) the building of a comprehensive audiology clinic according to international standards; b) training local healthcare workers in audiology; c) increasing access to education for children with hearing loss; and d) creating standards and protocols for the practice of audiology with the country.
This project needed to develop creative solutions in order to maintain a sustainable department in a government healthcare system that is severely underfunded and lacking in facilities, resources, and trained personnel. Examples of the creative solutions include these: a) supplementing services for community patients with funds received from private patients; and b) partnering with organizations within and outside Malawi to obtain donated supplies, services, and professional expertise; and c) future development of industrial screenings for large companies to assist with the financial sustainability of the program.
Although the project has employed an international audiologist to run the service for the first four years, four Malawian audiologists are set to graduate in December 2016, and two of them will take over the service upon departure of the international audiologist. Through the audiology department outreach services are in place in the southern region of Malawi; these services bring the same high standard of care found at the department clinic.
Maintaining high standards has been an essential part of the project as patients in need of audiology services often do not seek them due to a lack of funds for transportation to the hospital. Education is also a component of the project, which is in its development phases with the main goal of providing access to better education for children who have hearing loss.
- Inform the international audiology community about the progress made in Malawi so that elements of the project may be replicated in other parts of the world.
- Outlining creative solutions for audiologists working within a severely underfunded healthcare system.
- Information about a future piolet program providing better access to education for those students with hearing loss that are attending mainstream schools
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Presenters/Authors
Courtney Caron, Au.D.
(), Sound Seekers, drcourtney@sound-seekers.org.uk;
Courtney Caron was raised in Las Vegas, Nevada. She received her Bachelors of Science degree from University of Nevada Reno in Speech Pathology and Audiology in 2009. Later that year, Dr. Caron began her graduate studies at Arizona State University. Humanitarian audiology is a passion of hers which started in 2012 when she traveled to Malawi for a month long audiology outreach service with her graduate university’s non-profit organization Hearing for Humanity (HFH). During that time, she traveled with audiologists and other audiology students throughout Malawi providing humanitarian audiology services. She proceeded to graduate with her doctorate in Audiology (Au.D.) from Arizona State University in 2013. She returned to Malawi in 2013 and 2014 with the same program as a professional. In 2014 after completing the HFH mission, Dr. Caron remained behind to start her new position to establish a comprehensive audiology service in Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital with Sound Seekers, a British charity dedicated to helping those with hearing loss in several African countries. Dr. Caron will remain in Malawi until 2018 when the service is set to be turned over to the first Malawian audiologists who are currently being educated in Manchester, UK.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
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Nonfinancial -
Renee Garuccio
(), Dianella Health, renee.garuccio@gmail.com;
Renee Garuccio graduated with a Master of Clinical Audiology from The University of Melbourne in 2007. She worked in a Community Health center in Darwin, NT as a diagnostic paediatric audiologist in both urban and remote settings. In 2009, she became the Co-ordinator of the Northern Territory Universal Newborn Hearing Screening program and rolled out the program throughout the Territory to ensure >97% coverage. She has since returned to Melbourne have worked in both the hospital and community health sector in diagnostic and vestibular Audiology. She is currently employed as an Audiologist and Team Leader at Dianella Health. In January 2016, she spent three months in Blantyre, Malawi, volunteering with the Sound Seekers. Her role was to support and train the Audiology Officers, particularly in Paediatric Audiology. She also lectures and tutors Master of Audiology students as La Trobe University, Melbourne.
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