Part One - Australian Hearing

2 Australian Hearing Annual report 2009
Corporate profile
who are we?
We are the nation’s largest provider of hearing services.
We were established by the Australian Government in
1947 to provide hearing services to children whose hearing
was affected by a series of rubella epidemics and to assist
veterans who suffered hearing damage during World War II.
Australian Hearing is a statutory
authority constituted under
the Australian Hearing Services
Act 1991, reporting to the
Minister for Human Services, and
Minister for Financial Services,
Superannuation and Corporate
Law, the Hon Chris Bowen MP.
We focus on two key areas:
• providing hearing
health services through
a national network of
hearing centres; and
• undertaking research through
the National Acoustic
Laboratories (NAL).
Our programs
We provide hearing services
under the Australian Government
Hearing Services Program, which
is administered by the Department
of Health and Ageing through
the Office of Hearing Services
(OHS). The Hearing Services
Program has two streams – the
Community Service Obligation
(CSO) program and the Voucher
program. We are the sole
provider of services to children
under 21, Indigenous adults
over 50 and adults with complex
hearing needs, through the CSO
program. We also compete with
207 private service providers
for Voucher program clients.
Our services
Our services include assessing
hearing, fitting hearing devices
and providing counselling and
rehabilitative programs to enable
eligible clients to manage their
hearing impairment. Many of
our audiologists are specialists
in particular fields of service
delivery. These include paediatric,
adults with complex rehabilitation
needs and outreach services to
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
clients under the Australian
Hearing Specialist Program for
Indigenous Australians (AHSPIA).
CSO funding also supports NAL.
NAL performs research in hearing
habilitation and rehabilitation and
the prevention of hearing loss.
NAL is also a core party in the
Hearing Cooperative Research
Centre (Hearing CRC) which
commenced in July 2007.
The following table shows the number of audiological services, which includes hearing assessment,
device fitting and rehabilitation services, provided over the five-year period from 2005 to 2009.
Table One: Audiological services provided 2005–2009
(Includes Voucher and CSO clients)
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Children 47,315 48,318 49,522 56,130 56,358
Adult clients 296,931 313,747 316,573 327,367 342,494
Total 344,246 362,065 366,095 383,497 398,852