For 13-year-old Lily Palmer, it was a regular trip she’d be needing to make.
Due to her profound deafness in each one of her ears, Lily and her family would need to make the lengthy trip from Prince George to Vancouver in order to get her cochlear implants mapped with BC Children’s being the only location in the province where children can access cochlear implant technology and support.
But today, those long trips are no more.
At UHNBC in Prince George, Lily’s mapping became the first Canadian to receive Virtual Cochlear Implant Service.
Sitting in an audiology room at the hospital, Lily was able to connect with Dr. Raegan Bergstrom in Vancouver via a video call. The call allowed Bergstrom to program each of the 22 electrodes in Lily’s implant to ensure that she’s hearing efficiently.
“Money saver, time saver, and sanity saver,” said Lily’s mother Andrea of no longer needing to travel to the lower mainland. “When she was first implanted, when they first get the technology put in, you’re expected to go down [to Vancouver] every couple of months.”
Andrea added that for the average family, that type of trip can be costly in the long run.
Currently, this particular type of service is still being trialed with older youth. The goal for BC Children’s is to expand on who they provide the service to after they do some additional learning through trials as the one Lily received.
The service is designed to supplement the number of times children are needing to go to BC Children’s. Particularly during the winter season, and the conditions of highways connecting the lower mainland to Northern BC, Virtual Cochlear Implant Service could prove beneficial for children needing the service.
From age 1 to 18, kids with cochlear implants travel an average of 30 times from their home in BC to Vancouver to get their cochlear implant mapped.
Currently, there are approximately 250 deaf and hard of hearing children with cochlear implants in the province, and Children’s provides about 35 new cochlear implants each year.
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