Ombudsman reprimands Hong Kong government for planning blunder that led to shortage of hearing aids for children
- Education Bureau suspended hearing aid services for four months last year after its sole supplier was deemed not to have met requirements
- Complainant filed case after her 17-month-old toddler was left without hearing support for six months
The Ombudsman has slammed multiple failures by the government in providing crucial hearing aids and fitting services for children with hearing impairments, which left a two-year-old child without hearing support for six months.
The government watchdog upheld a complaint against the Education Bureau and found a series of lapses on the part of the government, including “inadequate forward planning, contingency measures and insufficient understanding of the hearing aid industry” that led to the suspension of its public hearing aid services for four months, from September to December last year, after the tendering process failed to find a suitable service provider.
“[The disruption] has caused an unnecessary impact on the learning development of [55 children]. The bureau has to take responsibility for the failures,” the Ombudsman wrote in her findings.
The complainant, who declined to be named, filed the case in December last year, after her then 17-month-old son had been diagnosed with an intermediate hearing disability at a Health Department facility in September and was referred to the Education Bureau for a hearing aid to be fitted, only to find the government service had been disrupted by the delay in replacing an existing supplier.