€3.2m so deaf kids can hear

The HSE has ringfenced vital funding to give profoundly deaf children the chance to hear.

Last December, this newspaper revealed more than 350 children were in effect being blocked from being able to hear because of funding problems.

The issue surrounded the long-standing inability of the service to fund a bilateral cochlear ear implant service at Beaumont Hospital.

The delicate procedure costs up to €50,000 per patient but the HSE repeatedly told the facility hundreds of affected children would have to make do with just one implant.

Under the HSE’s Service Plan for next year, from January, Beaumont will be given €3.2m to perform 100 bilateral cochlear ear implant surgeries.

The rate, which is the most the service can handle at any one time, will include 50 children with one implant and 50 with none.