Is There Anything Else I Could Have included?

[Guest guest]

As some of you know, I am in Australia. Where the deaf are still

discriminated against, quite severely. With this in mind and not being

able to sleep because of my tinnitus, I sent the following email to

our Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and our Minister of

Health and Ageing. Bearing in mind that to even get these things read,

one has to try and be brief, but make the points:

In a recent news release, you made the comment of a fair go for ALL

Australians.

I am deaf and as such, the disability of deafness and the isolation

and discrimination that often accompanies it, don't seem to fit well

under your governments disability umbrella.

When is more funding going to be made available, so that the deaf can

have access to a second Cochlear Implant?

When one gets ones eyes tested, one isn't just provided with one lens,

so why are the deaf discriminated against in the ways that they are?

I am most grateful for the one cochlear implant that I do have, it has

made my life easier. However, being able to hear better with one ear

isn't the ideal solution. One still has problems with locating from

which side a noise or sound is coming from and trying to hold a

conversation in a restaurant, or noisy meeting place, is very

difficult. Not being able to localise sounds can also be dangerous to

ones health.

We were given TWO ears for a reason, what do you think that reason is?

...............................

Is there anything else that I could have or should have included? I

would have liked to have mentioned the discrimination against the

deaf, with regards to mobile (cell) phone choice. We in Oz dont have

the wide variety of phones available that are T and M capable, as you

do in the USA. But I thought that 2 cochlear implants instead of the

governments insistence that one is enough, would go some way to making

phone life easier.

Ted F.