Eastern Europe needs more cochlear implants, says technology pioneer

While the availability of surgically implanted electronic devices for deaf people has widened in Western Europe in the last six years, in Eastern Europe there is a low level of adoption.

“It breaks my heart in a way – the technology is there, it should be taken advantage of,” said Ingeborg Hochmair, CEO of Med-EL, one of the biggest developers of hearing devices in the world, speaking in Brussels.

The cochlear implant, a device which can allow up to 70 per cent of normal hearing to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing, is widely available for children and adults in countries including Belgium, the UK, Germany and France. This is not the case in the Czech Republic, Balkan states or Bulgaria, said Hochmair.

Hochmair is recognised as a pioneer of the technology. In the 1970s, she and her husband, known on the campus of the Vienna University of Technology as the "Electronic Couple", created the first microelectronic multi-channel cochlear implant.

Today Med-EL, which is involved in nine EU research projects, makes roughly one-third of all the devices fitted globally each year. 

The factors holding back adoption are lack of awareness and cost, according to Paul Van de Heyning, professor at University Antwerp Hospital and chair of the HEARRING network of cochlear implant specialists.

“There are a lot of initiatives but they’re not well coordinated. Maybe the EU is not doing enough because the visibility is not there,” he said. 

Encouraging public-private partnerships on the topic might be one thing governments can look at, he added.

With a price tag between €30,000 – €40,000 for a single implant and aftercare, it is an expensive business. Usually adults in the EU are entitled to one implant, children two.

Studies show that the sooner a child receives an implant the better – preferably in the first 12 months. The number of children who require a cochlear device is not huge.  In Ireland, for instance, which only has one hospital that carries out the procedure, around 400 children received a device in ten years.    

Awareness campaign needed

The EU would like to do more, said Angelos Angelianos, a policy adviser in the DG Education and Culture, European Commission.

But he acknowledged it is an uphill battle, given health is an area where the European Commission plays a small and restricted role.

Without the right data on hand, the task is even harder. National records of hearing impairments are patchy in some countries, noted Angelianos, meaning it is hard to estimate the true demand for the technology. “A robust study would be a powerful tool for health ministers,” he said. “But personally I am pessimistic that we can get reliable, comparable data.”