All new-born children to undergo hearing tests in Moldova

Chisinau, 3 March /MOLDPRES/ - The compulsory hearing screening for new-born children has been introduced in Moldova. In this respect, the Health Ministry earlier this year distributed 40 medical devices for neonatal hearing screening to the Perinatal Centres from all over the country. The data was made public in the context of the marking of the World Hearing Day.    

According to the quoted source, the equipment worth about four million lei was donated by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), with the financial support of Japan’s government.   

According to the cited source, the hearing screening at new-born children is the first and the most important step in the early detection of the deafness in children. This screening does not return the hearing and cannot influence the number of children born with deafness; yet, their detection in advance, the subsequent monitoring and rehabilitation will reduce the consequences of deafness in their development.    

Also, the Health Ministry notes that, in late 2023, 70 specialists, of whom 62 medical employees from the perinatal centres of all levels, were trained as to the use of equipment in the early diagnosing of hearing deficiencies in new-born children, at the Centre of Hearing, auditory prosthetics and medical and pedagogical rehabilitation of the Emilian Cotaga Clinic of the Mother and Child Institute (IMC).   

IMC will provide, at the Republican Hearing Centre, the complex hearing examination of all new-born children identified with problems of hearing, the establishment of the diagnose and of the behavior of treatment, including the specialized medical assistance, proceeding from the individual needs of each child, auditory prosthetics and medical and pedagogical rehabilitation.  

Also, IMC will create and develop, in the first half of this year, the record of children with deafness and will provide the periodical exchange of information between the medical, education, social institutions, in order to ensure the opportune monitoring, rehabilitation, recovery and socialization of children.   

Health Ministry’s data show that, since the beginning of 2024, the hearing screening has been made in more than 1,400 new-born children from Moldova. The diagnosis of deafness was confirmed in two of the new-born children.