Free hearing tests for PWDs now in Tacurong

TACURONG CITY –
A Davao City based foundation promoting and helping persons with disabilities
hearing problems is now in Tacurong City extending free hearing tests and
physical assessment.

Patients who
would like to avail of the services may visit Sultan Kudarat Doctors Hospital
for examination by audiologists and physical therapists from Davao Jubilee
Foundation (DJF) every second Friday of the month.

DJF has
started hearing test, hearing aid fitting, newborn hearing screening, auditory
brainstem response, and physical assessment in Tacurong in July this year.

Physical
assessment is done to persons with orthopedic disabilities like amputees or
polio victims.

DJF partnered
with the Sultan Kudarat Doctors Hospital, Tacurong City government and city social
welfare and development office.

We used tobring
PWDs to DJF in Davao City for check-up, now DJF came to Tacurong City,” Kathy Mae Catalan, focal person for PWDs of CSWD-LGU
Tacurong said.

For patients
that needed further medication, the Tacurong CSWO refers them to DJF, PCSO and
other organization.

Free hearing
aids are also ready for distribution.

Processing for
hearing aids may take a month or more, starting with hearing tests, molding and
fitting. Results had to be forwarded to Luzon for manufacturing,” said Pia
Zaño, DJF audiologist, adding that through this process, hearing aids are
perfectly-fit for the recipient-person.

Tacurong City
has earmarked P350,000 budget for the PWDs this year shortly after the Tacurong
City Committee on Disability Affairs was established.

It will attend
to the needs of PWDs and headed by Mayor Lina O. Montilla as chairperson.

In 2013, DJF
and Tacurong LGU inked a memorandum of agreement for Community-based
Rehabilitation in the city’s 20 villages.

(LGU-Tacurong
City Information)