| Health professionals
|
|
|
|
Audiology Department
back to Services listing
The Audiology Department at Waikato Hospital specialises in paediatric hearing testing and paediatric hearing aids and provides a busy outpatient service for the Waikato region. Outreach clinics are also offered in Tokoroa, Te Kuiti and Taumarunui
The Audiology Department also provides adult hearing services; however Hearing Therapists (at the Hearing Association) and the private sector audiologists complement this service by providing the initial hearing aid assessment for adult patients referred to our services.
Hearing Therapists also provide professional assistance with hearing aids, assistive listening devices and communication strategies.
Our
Audiologists provide a full range of third party funding options for
adult hearing aids including ACC, War pensions and ENABLE. |
What we do: Services offered by the department include the following:
- Diagnostic hearing assessment for all ages including newborns
- Auditory processing assessment
- Habilitation and hearing aid fitting for children with permanent hearing loss
- Habilitation and hearing aid fitting for adults
- Ototoxicity monitoring
Who we are:- 6 Audiologists
- 2 Receptionists
- 1 Booking Clerk
| We work in collaboration with:- Waikato Newborn Hearing Screening Programme: to provide diagnostic and habilitation services for babies detected with hearing loss.
- Ear, Nose and Throat department: we provide hearing assessments for children in theatre and also have a combined ENT/ Audiology clinic once a month with Otolaryngologist Mr Malcolm Giles.
- Maxillofacial Department: assessment and fitting for bone anchored hearing aids
- North Island Cochlear Implant Programme: runs an outreach clinic from the department three times a year.
Waikato DHB Newborn Hearing Screening Programme
The aim of New Zealand’s Universal Newborn Hearing Screening and
Early Intervention Programme (UNHSEIP) is for ‘early identification of
newborns with hearing loss so that they can access timely and
appropriate interventions, inequalities are reduced and the outcomes
for these children, their families and whanau, communities and society
are improved’.
Screening takes place at Waikato Hospital, the
2 birth centres in Hamilton and in the rural areas of Te Kuiti,
Taumarunui, Tokoroa, Te Awamutu, Matamata, Morrinsville, Te Aroha,
Huntly and Thames.
Employed are a Programme Manager and 6 part time screeners.
The Waikato DHB Newborn Hearing Screening Programme commenced in 2004 and has had success at the following awards:
- Winners of the Quality Health NZ/Baxters Quality Improvement Awards 2005
- Winners of the Waikato DHB Best of Health Awards 2006
- Clinical Practice Improvement award
- Grand Prize – Continuous Improvement
- Finalist in the 2007 New Zealand Health Innovation Awards
| 
Newborn Hearing Screening Team with Newborn Hearing Screening Programme Leader from the National Screening Unit.
| Media release
|
