Cristy and I just spent a week in Samoa working with the Senese Centre for the Deaf - assessing the hearing of children and adults and fitting donated hearing. It was our 27th trip since 2008.
I saw 27 people and fitted 28 donated hearing aids. Cristy assessed the hearing of 29 people. There were many very deaf adults on the group. We made the first earmould in Samoa and left all the kit to make more.
On our trip the adults were very motivated to get a hearing aid. A lot of faces lit up. Great results from children too- we saw one little boy who was hard to test but we fitted him with a hearing aid. When he came back after a few days his mother said that he was not interacting with other children and liked the hearing aid. He tested well on the second visit and proved to have a severe hearing loss.
We nearly ran out of high power aids.
Senese are doing a really good job. They are not receiving any government funding at the moment, which is very sad.
There are now more than 800 people in Samoa fitted with aids on our database and there were others before we began it.
Professor Philip Newall AM
March 2026
