Lack of government contract leaves hearing-impaired Hong Kong children without hearing aids at crucial time for their development
- No company fulfilled the requirements of the government’s tender at the start of the school year, depriving about 20 children of hearing supports
- Lawmaker Fernando Cheung calls on the Education Bureau to allocate vouchers to parents so they can buy hearing aids from third parties
Yan Lam, 36, is feeling helpless about her nine-month-old daughter who cannot get a hearing aid for her hearing impairments, which are moderately severe in one ear and severe in another.
The mother said children with such disabilities should be given a device when they are six months old, according to the Education Bureau’s guidelines, so by the time they are a year old, they can remember a lot of sounds necessary for language development.
But the bureau has not been able to provide Lam’s baby and around 20 others with free hearing aids due to a contractual problem with the supplier since the school year began.
Lawmakers and parents’ groups have urged the government to provide vouchers or subsidies to help parents buying the device, which can cost as much as HK$30,000 (HK$3,840) on the open market.
She already has other disabilities. While there might be ways to rescue her hearing, I don’t want it to turn out I can’t help her
To tackle the concerns, officials on Friday promised that they would invite some firms to give quotations on prices, so that they could provide the services to the children as soon as early January.