Proper legislation

The key to a successful HCP is through proper legislation.  No amount of individual of organisational efforts will be fruitful, unless backed whole-heartedly by the government bodies.

Unless we make it mandatory to incorporate hearing evaluation tests in the routine yearly school health programme we will be missing the diagnosis of hearing loss in most of the children.  Most of these children can be restored to normal hearing with proper medical or surgical treatment. Such a legislation will go a long way in cutting medical expenditure and also in preventing complications secondary to the undiagnosed disease. The responsibility of conducting such evaluations, maintaining records and arranging for regular follow-ups for the children identified, as having a hearing loss should be solely with the management of the school.  Lapses or negligence should be seriously dealt with.

Similar responsibility should rest with the management in industries.  A responsible person should be delegated with the task of successfully running a programme in association with a medical consultant.  Records must be kept accurately and legibly since these records may become part of medico-legal procedures.

At present, the laws that protect employees from occupational injuries and diseases are not implemented seriously.  Existing loopholes have to be effectively sealed thus making it mandatory for industries to use feasible administrative or engineering controls to reduce workers’ exposure to noise to permissible levels.  If hazardous levels of noise persist, the affected employees have to be included in a HCP and provided with personal protective equipment.  Employees who are judged to be handicapped due to the hearing loss should be adequately compensated.  Compensation boards should be set up to authenticate each case and make recommendations.

Environmental noise pollution in our cities is totally unchecked.  Walking on the roads in any city is an ear shattering experience. Road transport authorities must take poise pollution seriously and must assist in reducing noise by banning the use of horns in buses and lorries.  More areas in the cities can be made “No Horn” zones.  The use of blaring loudspeakers in public should be banned and violators should be heavily penalized.

Unless proper steps are taken to conserve hearing, an increasing percentage of our population are going to suffer from partial or total deafness which in most cases is preventable.  We should seriously think in terms of an effective hearing conservation program suitable for our country before more damage is done.