30 SA kids found to have implants incorrectly programmed
The South Australian Health Minister says there could be a nationwide problem with incorrectly programmed cochlear implants.
Transcript
00:00 Well, the state government has commissioned an independent review into Adelaide's Women's
00:05 and Children's Hospitals' cochlear implant program and it found systemic issues dating
00:11 back as far back as 2006. They include problems with staff training and also the gaps in policies
00:17 and procedures within the hospital. But since 2006, we know that there's been 208 children
00:22 who were treated by the service and of those 30 were found to have had their cochlear implants
00:28 incorrectly mapped. The state government says that number could be higher though. It said
00:33 that it's commissioned another review that's looking at going through each individual children,
00:38 each of the 208, to test their hearing to see if their cochlear implants are correctly
00:42 mapped or not. There have been some families who've gone out and sought their own second
00:46 opinion independently and have found that they were initially told their child's cochlear
00:50 implant was okay and then upon a second opinion found out that actually, no, there is some
00:54 issues with it. So we're expecting to see those numbers potentially increase significantly
00:59 over the coming months. Had this been caught two years ago or three years ago or four years
01:05 ago, depending on how long the mapping's been incorrect, it would have made a huge impact
01:09 on how her speech and language has developed now. It's been terrible. I mean, expressing
01:14 myself to all the professionals, she can't hear. And as we heard there, Stephanie, this
01:21 has really affected the families involved. That's right. That was one mother talking
01:25 about the impact that it's had on her. And so many families have spoken out and just
01:30 expressed that anger and frustration and a shock at hearing that their children in some
01:34 cases haven't been able to hear properly for years and have had their cochlear implants
01:38 incorrectly mapped. There were some families that were quoted in a review report that was
01:43 released yesterday by the government and they were talking about the absolute heartbreak
01:47 at finding out that this issue has occurred. And that's the reason why for so many years
01:52 they've seen their child not being able to interact with other children as they should
01:56 have not having those developmental delays. A lot of parents also talked about feeling
02:01 like they were dismissed by the audiologists and staff at the cochlear implant program
02:06 when they tried raising concerns. There was one mother who said that she felt like she
02:10 was being judged when she tried raising concerns. They told her, just give it a bit more time.
02:15 You know, it might be an issue with how you're raising your child. And that feeling of feeling
02:20 like she was judged as a parent really hit home with her. And the government's really
02:24 responded strongly to that. Yeah. And tell us about the government response.
02:29 So we had the premier out yesterday and he was quite emotional in the press conference.
02:33 He said that this is as big an error as one could ever possibly imagine. He got quite
02:39 teary when he was speaking about the impact that it's had on some of the families. We've
02:43 had the health minister, Chris Picton, out as well. He's come and apologised to all the
02:46 families involved, said that what has happened should never have happened and that the government
02:50 is accepting all 59 recommendations from the independent review. One thing that Chris Picton
02:56 talked about earlier as well was the fact that this isn't an issue that is just limited
03:00 to South Australia. It could have national implications.
03:04 There's already been a service in Queensland that's had a similar issue that's happened
03:08 and they've raised that there's issues that need to be addressed across the country in
03:12 terms of how audiologists are accredited and their training and these services across the
03:18 country. So I've already raised this with the Federal Health Minister, Mark Butler.
03:22 We'll be raising it with all the other states and territories across the country to make
03:26 sure that everybody has this information from what's happened here and that we can make
03:31 sure that such a thing doesn't happen anywhere else in the country.
03:35 The health ministers also come out and said that the state government will be offering
03:38 compensation to impacted families. So those with children who have had their cochlear
03:43 implants incorrectly programmed, they're set to receive $50,000 each and those whose children
03:49 were part of the program but whose cochlear implants there was no issue found, they'll
03:53 still receive $5,000 in acknowledgement of the stress that they've been under. So the
03:58 cost could run in the millions and that doesn't even take into account the fact that some
04:02 families may be considering pursuing legal action through the courts as well. The state
04:06 government says it is prepared for that to happen.
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