Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The first few years of a child’s life are crucial to learning and development and much of what they could learn depends upon being able to hear. Forming neuropathways during brain development, language skills, the soothing voice of their mothers when they fall, shouted warnings to avoid injuries, and lullabies before they sleep all require the ability to hear, and hear well.
For families with babies hard of hearing, however, hearing aids are expensive and not every family with a young child in need of them is able to afford to give their child the lifeline to the world that a hearing aid represents. Fortunately, we have coverage for Aboriginal babies, but unfortunately, we do not currently have a universal hearing aid program to ensure coverage for all needy children.
Closing the gap and covering these children in their crucial first years of life would require a very modest change to the current GNWT supplementary health benefits as it does not fit under the current policy. While the 16th Assembly failed to address this policy void, resolution of the need for additional hearing aid coverage for children in the NWT is long overdue.
While only a few babies a year need this support, the impacts are desperately large for each of these few individuals who suffer because of our lack of action. Filling in this gap is critical, yet it is inexpensive. A decision paper started in 2010 and delivered in 2012, after considerable research by audiology experts breaking down all costs associated with providing a comprehensive hearing aid program, found that the cost of a hearing aid program for children not covered by another plan for their first 18 years was only $14,500 per child with an annual cost for the total NWT program a meager $22,000 per year. Costs to government, let alone families of affected individuals of not providing hearing aids to these children were found to be much greater than the costs of providing them because of education and other issues that arose without this support. Shame on us for not getting this done long ago.
Such costs are covered for our seniors. Every province with a respectable hearing support program provides coverage for all children. We screen all newborns for hearing impairment and we know that hearing impaired children need hearing aids by age six months, yet we are leaving some vulnerable children without the tools they need to learn, grow and prosper. Again, I say, shame.
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement. Mahsi.
---Unanimous consent granted
The policy gap has been identified, the cost calculated to be minimal, while the positive effects on those in need can be huge. I urge the Minister of Health and Social Services to find 20 or 30 K in his annual budget of over $300 million to address this developmental necessity. Dealing with issues identified in early childhood must be a priority, and providing hearing aids for all of the children in need of them is certainly one that we can and must achieve. I say to the Minister, get this shameful gap filled now within the life of this Assembly. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
