MISSION STATEMENT

To provide effective, quality and efficient audiological services, ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) and basic ear care services throughout the country, in a bid to reduce disability in terms of hearing loss; thereby reducing poverty and internal brain drain, thus enhancing the nation’s development.

OVERALL OBJECTIVE

To establish an efficient radiological service for both the rural as well as urban communities through a mobile clinic known as HARK! Sierra Leone and a static unit based at the Connaught Hospital.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Since the effective implementation of the project, the following facilities have been attained:

•    The team has been able to establish and equip the Audiological Unit. This has enabled the screening of both adults and children with hearing loss.
•     They have also been to set up a mobile clinic, HARK! which they hope would eventually extend its services across the country.
•    The unit's head has been able to train staff nurses, midwives and nursing sisters across the country. They have in turn been able to give basic ear care as well as Audiological services. Nursing attendants and technicians have also been trained.
•    The HARK! has recorded over 538 cases which have been attended to. The highest case recorded was the visit to the Waterloo community with a high of 102 cases within a day. The lowest recorded was at Newton with just 29 cases. All other cases are about a 79% turn out.

 ABOUT THE PROGRAMME

At Audiological Services, the team's vision is to find solution to the lack of knowledge on basic ear care and deafness prevention around the whole country.

The programme's intention is to create sensitizations on the public in a bid to find solutions to the lack of knowledge of good ear care and prevention of deafness, thus enhancing the treatment of deafness and ear diseases throughout the country. This is because most of the causes of deafness are either preventable or curable.

The programme's operations started in February this year when the hospital reopened and have been equipped with new and very sophisticated instruments to work with. Some of these include audio meters, impedance meters (middle ear analyzers), hearing aid analyzers and ear mould laboratory equipment. All these equipment were supplied by the Commonwealth Society for the Deaf.

The programme operates on two levels: the static clinic at Connaught and the mobile clinic known as HARK!, which is also sponsored by the Commonwealth Society for the Deaf.

Since February this year, HARK! which is mainly based on ear care, has delivered outreach services to the rural community.  In order to carry out our mandate, we have implemented various strategies on how to connect with the communities we work with.

What obtains is that health officers in charge of communities are contacted and are sensitised on the aims of the National Audiology Services. Their inputs are also taken into consideration when desgining messages for their communities. The health officers in turn sensitize their communities about the programme's aims and a date for screenings test is then selected.

The clinic has been to all communities in Freetown except for the Kissy, Regent, Wilberforce and George Brook Communities. Dates for screening of theses communities have however been set and the sensitization of health workers and community opinion leaders have been done.

The programme has not been to visit communities in the provinces as a result of the lack of trained personnel and funding but hopes that with logistics, this would become a thing of the past soon.

The static unit serves the whole of the Freetown community in various ways. Examinations, diagnosis treatment and counselling is what is being done. Currently, the programme conducts all ENT operations in the country.  It also serves as a training center for local staff. In short, the programme does all ENT clinic audiology services. This is done by conducting an on-the-job training for these staff and this has resulted in an immense improvement in their performance lately.

There is also an established ear mould lab though operations have not yet started as we are still in the installation phase.

FUTURE PLANS

It is hoped that eventually, the center will become an accredited one for ENT across the country.  

In the nearest future, the nursing sisters would be sent abroad for further training in ENT services. With an increament of staff and expertised, it is hoped that the programme would be made available countrywide.

A good number of auxillary staff would be brought in soon and eventually, the unit would be accredited as a training school by the Government and its partners