One of my most formative experiences in my career so far has been my time in Kenya with the Hear the World Foundation. It was completely eye opening to see the difference in audiology practices and hospital environments in compared to what we have here in England. It was now a few years ago but the lessons I learnt during my time in Kenya were invaluable.
The week beginning 10th February 2020 was a rollercoaster week. After landing in Nairobi the night before the #HearKenya team set off at 6.30am for Kijabe- a journey which in theory should take an hour but actually took closer to three!
Kijabe is a mountainous village roughly 45km south of Nairobi. It is home to the AIC Kijabe Hospital where the #HearKenya project is taking place. In 2017 the World Health Organization reported that that Kenyans are more afflicted by hearing loss compared to the global average of five people with hearing difficulties in every 100. This has a huge impact on the education of children in Kenya. The number of deaf graduates in Kenya is incredibly low. Although Hear the World has been supporting the audiology department for the past two years this was the first visit to Kijabe. The goal of this visit was to provide some face to face training for the two local audiologists, Elizabeth and Jonathan, as well as carrying out hearing screenings in the local population to raise hearing health awareness.
The #HearKenya team consisted of seven members including myself: Laura Meng, Ora Buerkli, Sylvester Feijoo, Barbara Muench, Jasmine Opoku-Ware and our photographer Chrisoph. As soon as we arrived in Kijabe we hit the ground running! The week we were in Kenya had been advertised on the AIC Kijabe hospital Facebook page which has over 21,000 followers. Patients had travelled as far as Mombasa, which is a nine hour drive, to be seen. When we entered the audiology department it was immediately clear that resources were extremely limited: from lack of soundproofing and calibrated equipment to visual reinforcement audiometry capabilities and REM equipment. Luckily, the Hear the World Foundation were prepared and donated a variety of equipment including tympanometers, OAE and ABR testing equipment. Sylvester and Barbara were on hand to train Jonathan and Elizabeth on the equipment.
During the week Jasmine spent most of her time with Jonathan training him on various diagnostic audiometry methods whilst also seeing adult patients. Ora and I spent most of our time with Elizabeth training on paediatric testing and fitting techniques whilst also screening paediatric patients. Due to a lack of a formal audiology training scheme in Kenya, Jonathan and Elizabeth are mostly self-taught. Thanks to Hear the World, Elizabeth has been on a training programme in Lübeck, Germany on paediatric audiology. Hence, it was a fairly intensive week for training! However, Jonathan and Elizabeth have a keen hunger to learn more and are incredibly receptive to constructive feedback.
In addition to all the training, between two clinic rooms over two hundred patients were seen within the five days we were at AIC Kijabe Hospital. The week we spent in Kenya was challenging however incredibly rewarding. Although the week may be over, Hear the World is dedicated to long-term support for all of its projects. The audiology clinic at AIC Kijabe Hospital will no doubt change the face of current audiology practice and become the gold standard clinic within Kenya with the support of Hear the World.