The National Foundation for the Deaf and the affiliated group Project HIEDI are both strong supporters and advocates for
the NZ Newborn Hearing Screening Programme.
The Foundation and Project HIEDI are alarmed and distressed at the reported need for 2000 babies to be recalled for
hearing screening tests after the Ministry of Health discovered “irregularities” in its national Newborn Hearing
Screening Programme.
We have previously raised issues about the inadequate monitoring and data collection and we remain concerned at the
insufficient resourcing of this vital programme. We consider screening failure to be an inevitable consequence of such
constant under funding.
It is indeed fortunate that the vigilance of programme staff in one of the DHBs revealed the problem and the subsequent
review done by the Ministry of Health has discovered these discrepancies nationally and is now putting in place measures
to reduce the risk of this happening in the future.
Screening of our new-born babies for hearing loss is a vital way to ensure that all of the support that may be required
by a baby who is deaf or hearing impaired, and their family, is provided at the earliest opportunity, offering the best
social, educational and health outcomes for the babies.
Prior to the introduction of the national Newborn Hearing Screening Programme it would take up to 4 years for a child to
be identified as having a significant hearing impairment. This led to significant delays in the development of their
language and communication skills. The successful introduction of this programme is reducing that age to 1-3 months and
we support the continuance of it nationally.
We also believe there is an urgent need for the Ministry of Health to require the National Screening Unit to introduce
individual targeted follow up for each baby that has invalid test results rather than simply sending a letter of recall.
It is well known that the recall letter method has a low success rate.
We also remain concerned at the lack of a co-ordinated data collection process for the New-born Hearing Screening
Progamme and urge the Ministry of Health to consider the risk this presents.