A 12-YEAR-OLD with moderate to severe hearing loss in both ears was among 16 children whose impairment was not picked up by a clinician working in audiology services in the Health Service Executive (HSE) South.

MORE than 11,000 people with suspected hearing impairments – the bulk of them children – are on waiting lists for assessment, nearly half for more than 10 months.

IF there were rankings for muddling, overpaid, bureaucratic inefficiency, surely our Health Service Executive would deserve a high international ranking.

ON March 3, at Portland Hospital in London, two-year-old Hannah White underwent surgery for the fitting of a small electronic device that provides a sense of sound to someone who is profoundly deaf.

A REVIEW of audiology services in the Health Service Executive South (HSE) is focusing on one clinician despite the involvement of a second audiologist in a misdiagnosis.