232807
Letters  

Our health care is broken

The cochlear implant program in British Columbia needs immediate attention to address the current two year surgical wait times.

Imagine being outside with your family taking a walk in a park. You can hear the birds chirping and the wind rustling the leaves above you. Your children are laughing and sharing all the sights and sounds with you and are eagerly telling you about all that they see and hear. Now imagine taking the same walk in the park with your children but you can no longer hear the birds, the leaves rustling, or the sounds of your children laughing; their voices are now just a distant mumble and you are not able to make out what they are saying to you. This is my life, I have severe to profound hearing loss in both of my ears and I am in desperate need of a cochlear implant. 

I am just 34 years old and wear bilateral hearing aides but still I cannot hear the sounds that I have described to you. My hearing aides can no longer help as my hearing has degraded to such a point that I have little to no word understanding left. This traumatic loss started only six years ago with a moderate loss in my right ear. Over the course of the last six years I have gradually lost most of my hearing in both of my ears. I have what is called idiopathic severe to profound sensorineural bilateral hearing loss. I have been told that a cochlear implant can drastically improve my life, however, due to the current wait list one in the near future is not possible. St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, BC is the only hospital in the province that can perform this operation and it reports that the wait time for this surgery is currently two years. In those two years my hearing will continue to deteriorate and I may become completely deaf. 

I am a mother to a 7 and 9 year old. I soon won’t be able to hear them. I am a wife, who has such a patient and loving husband, who soon will not be able to hear him tell me how much he loves me. I have a house, a car and a good job. All of those are at jeopardy because of the wait time.

I am a nurse with 12 years of surgical experience on a busy surgical floor at Kelowna General Hospital. I have since lost my job as I am no longer able to perform my duties safely due to my hearing loss. I am in the process of having the hospital attempt to find me an accommodated position and in the interim have been forced to apply for medical EI and in short order long term disability. The surgeries that my unit takes care of are orthopaedic, neurological, and urological. It seems so ironic to me that I am a frontline nurse dealing with the increase in orthopaedic surgeries due to the government mandate to lessen the wait time for these surgeries. We are working harder trying to provide safe nursing care so that our patients can get the care they need in a shorter amount of time. Yet the surgery that I so desperately need to be able to continue to do my job is a two year wait! A wait that is two years too long! If I were to have had my surgery three months ago I would be able to be back at work by now. I would be able to continue to work in a profession that is in such demand and saves lives. I could continue to be a contributing person to society and continue to be able to pay my income taxes to support those that truly need assistance. Instead I must wait two years on disability. Wait to be a nurse, wait to hear when this is an ability I have had my whole life? A basic sense that most take for granted.

Losing a basic sense is extremely traumatic. What is even more traumatic is being told that there is a procedure that can give me my life and my job back, but I cannot have it done for two years. 

I feel so isolated and feel so alone. I face a depression and isolation that is numbing. The only thing that gets me out of bed anymore is my husband and my kids. I can’t even go through a drive thru and order a coffee because I can no longer hear what is said through the speaker. I am constantly avoiding situations because of the looks I get when I don’t understand what is being said to me. Our health care system is failing me, one of its front line workers, and this a system that I have worked to support. What about all the other people waiting for this life changing surgery? What about the person with no family supports? The person sitting at home right now on disability falling deeper and deeper into depression. A depression that they probably won’t be able to get out of. Who is going to support them? Who is going to encourage them?

Now let’s talk about this medical masterpiece that is just sitting in the hospital waiting to help me and many others. A cochlear implant is an electronic device that replaces the function of my damaged inner ear; specifically my cochlea. Unlike my hearing aides, which only make things louder for me, the cochlear implant does the work of the damaged cochlea in my inner ear. The cochlear implant is able to provide sound signals to my brain. Signals that my brain will be able to understand and interpret again. My word understanding will start to recover over the course of rehabilitation. Instead of the 46% word understanding that I have now I could recover up into 80-90%. I can start to use the phone again and no longer have to rely on lip reading. The cochlear implant will help me focus better in noisy environments because it isn’t simply making sounds louder for me. The cochlear implant surgery itself is a day procedure. It is done under general anaesthetic and is approximately two-three hours in length. I would go home the same day. After 4-6 weeks I would go back to St. Paul’s and have my implant activated and programmed specifically to me.

St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver BC is the only hospital in BC that does the cochlear implant surgery. They only do 35 surgeries per year! That means that only 35 people receive a cochlear implant per year. So if my math is correct, that means that around 70 people are currently waiting for a cochlear implant. 70 people are waiting two years to get a surgery that would get most back to work and back to being productive citizens. Back to living their lives. In order to be a candidate at St. Paul’s Hospital one must have less than 60% word understanding in their left ear, right ear, and both ears together. Imagine for a minute only being able to hear 60% of what someone says to you. And that is 60% in a quiet environment. Not when you are out to dinner with friends and you have the restaurant noise plus multiple people talking at the same time. You miss a lot, and you learn to smile a lot hoping that it is an appropriate response to what is being said. Life moves on without you and without you knowing what is going on.

I have many contacts on Facebook with a cochlear implant recipient group. I know that the wait times across Canada differ greatly. The funding per province differs greatly. In Ontario for example a cochlear implant surgery is done within approximately 3-8 months and they will do both ears. In BC it is a two year wait and they will only do one ear. Quebec it is under one year. Back in 2004 one of my contacts only waited 8 months in BC now it is up to two years! 

My goal in all of this is not only to increase the funding available for cochlear implants in BC at St. Paul’s Hospital to help myself, but to the help the other people who are not as vocal as me. When I think about the two years to come and all that I am going to miss out on it stuns me. It makes me angry, angry that I have to be a burden to the system when a two hour surgery could change all of that. Something has to be done and it has to be done now! 35 surgeries in a year is too low the number must be increased. The demand over the years has clearly grown and it is time to act. It is time to give those living with hearing loss their lives back. Give them the chance to live again, to work again, to be productive tax paying citizens.

Jordona Hubber



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