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As the age limit of 6
years old for implanting manmade electronic ear by surgery, the two children
are too old for such surgeries, thus they are not able to get the assistant. At
present, electronic ears cost the family nearly NT$30,000 each year without any
payment from National Health Insurance, leaving the family a heavy economic
burden. The government is expected to help them to pay the bill.
Mei-hua Hsu filed
petitions for the hearing disabled and their families, expecting the government
to lower the threshold for aid to electronic ear surgery and related materials.
Thus, the hearing disabled can be expected to get the medical treatment earlier
and start a life as normal person.
Mei-hua Hsu said the
golden time to implant electronic ear is before the age of 6. However, her two
children implanted electronic ears at the age of 8 and 6 respectively without
the possibility to correct pronunciation. Moreover, the surgery cost her
NT$650,000, all paid by herself. If not for an income of an order, she would
have no money for the surgery at that time. It costs her NT$30,000 for
materials such as wires and batteries. To save money, the children will not
like to change to the wireless one.TOP
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Photo with President Chen
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Implanting surgery costing NT$980,000
She says that the
current electronic ear surgery cost is NT$980,000 and the government pays for
low income one NT$600,000, the medium-low income one NT$400,000, and general
family NT$200,000. It is still a heavy burden to the parents of hearing disabled,
let alone fixed expenditure such as batteries. The government is expected to
increase financial support to make it possible for more children to receive
treatment earlier.
Mei-hua Hsu and her
husband Fu-jun Chung are employed in household services with their older son
Yi-ting Chung aged 18 studying at grade one, Chungli Senior High School and
younger son Yi-jun Chung16 aged 16 studying at grade two, Pingcheng Junior High
School. The two boys got electronic ear surgery at age of 8 and 6 respectively.TOP
Mei-hua Hsu recalled
that the older boy could not speak at age of 2 and they discovered that the boy
could hear nothing at all. They then found out the same problem occurring to
the second boy when they were busy searching medical and educational facilities.
Heavily blown by the children, they once planned to give them up. However, the
husband said: “Since God give us such children, we got to have them well
educated.”
In the beginning,
Mei-hua Hsu to her sons to Taipei School for the Hearing Impaired, the hearing
disability society for early medical and educational intervention to train the
pronunciation of the two boys each day for a lasting 5 years. Being encouraged
by uncle-in-law later on, the wife and husband decided to get the boys then new
technology of electronic ear surgery. Mei-hua Hsus said that a surgery cost
them NT$650,000 each and NT$1.3 million for two children. Fortunately, her
husband got an order then with money saved by them; the two children got
electronic ears one after another.
Looking at other
children who got electronic ears before age of 3 and developed normally,
Mei-hua Hsu said in sigh that her children got a lot of misunderstandings with
classmates due to hearing disability and pronunciation. However, after repeated
promotion of the school, things get better gradually.TOP
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