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Just contact us if you think you are eligible for HARP. Call
SADeaf at 63448274 and ask for our Audiological Technician Mr.
Lai. Complete the attached
application
form before you come down to the Association. Do note
that our social worker will need to ask you for your financial
background. You can also contact the medical social workers at
the hospital ENT departments.
If you have used hearing aids to donate
Don’t throw away those old hearing aids, when you upgrade to a
better model or you have had a cochlear implant fitted. We can
refit them to needy people.
We prefer digital hearing aids that have not been previously
repaired. If you are not sure, just donate it anyway.
To donate, please call SADeaf at 63448274 and ask for our
Audiological Technician Mr. Lai. One of our volunteers will
come and pick it up from you. To make it more convenient for
you to donate your hearing aids, we are in the process of
appealing to the polyclinics and hospital ENT clinics to place
our collection boxes there.
What is HARP all about?
On 21 Jun 2008, SADeaf signed a Memorandum of
Understanding with Temasek Polytechnic and the Society of
Audiology Professionals Singapore to set up the Hearing Aid
Recycling Programme or HARP. HARP is a programme to collect
good, used hearing aids from the public and have them fitted to
needy hard-of-hearing. While a needy person can have government
funding under the Assistive Technology Fund up to $10,000 per
person per lifetime, a decent digital hearing aid may cost
$3,000 and after he has used up his first pair, he may not have
enough funding to buy a second pair.
On the other hand, there are people who may be
disposing of perfectly good hearing aids because their hearing
has deteriorated and they need more powerful ones, or they have
had a cochlear implant and no longer need them or for various
other reasons. So we want to collect these hearing aids and have
them refitted to the people who have no funds to buy them.
This idea started with the public education
volunteer group in SADeaf and many members of the group helped
craft the proposal. A start up programme like this has no
funding and we needed other agencies to help us. We needed
volunteer audiologists to refit these hearing aids. SAPS has
willingly come forward and their members will give their
personal time on evenings and weekends. In fact Mr Steven Lee,
President of SAPS will roster himself first. Next we needed a
place and equipment to carry out the fittings. Temasek
Polytechnic has generously provided a clinic and equipped it
complete with test boxes and all the necessary tools at their
own expense.
We must also record our appreciation to the Ear,
Nose and Throat departments at SGH, NUH and TTSH who will help
us collect hearing aids from the public. And very importantly,
Siemens who will help us kick start our hearing aid bank with a
generous gift of 20 new hearing aids.
What we have achieved with the setting up of HARP
is a ground-breaking model for delivering a community service.
It is a zero-funding programme, with three agencies coming
together out of goodwill to deliver services to our deaf and
hard-of-hearing population. The HARP programme is ready to
receive clients. Just contact the social workers at the
hospital ENT departments or at SADeaf. |
