The average cost of hearing aids amounts to 1,500 euros per unit, a cost to which must be added the cost of batteries that amounts to about 240 euros a year, warns the consumer organization OCU, which is demanding that the Ministry of Health include it within the portfolio of prosthetics and orthotics provision services of the National Health System (SNS).
The OCU, which thus joins the claim of the Spanish Confederation of Families of Deaf People (FIAPAS), denounces that despite these high costs and the enormous impact that hearing problems have on the autonomy of people and in their daily life, only 15% of hearing aid users in Spain have some kind of help to buy them, unlike what happens in Belgium, where 94% did have help, or 53% of users in Italy or 52% in Portugal.
expensive to maintain
To the expenses for its acquisition must be added the possible expenses in repair. Repairs that are not only expensive but are also quite frequent, since 18% of the interviewees who use a hearing aid indicated the existence of problems as a reason for stopping using the device in the last year.
Consumer organizations from Belgium, Italy and Portugal, in addition to the OCU, have just carried out a survey among more than 3,200 citizens to find out the level of satisfaction of hearing aid users as well as the daily experience of wearers of this type of device.
In the survey, the main conclusion is drawn from the high price of hearing aids and the lack of existing aid to be able to acquire them. More than 26% of the Spanish participants in the study expressed hearing loss problems, and only 55% of them said they knew the cause of it. Being the main cause of hearing loss over the years.
In addition, the study carried out by OCU shows how, on average, the respondents took more than 10 years to go to the specialist or GP for help, alleging that either it did not seem like a serious problem, or for economic reasons or simply that his own doctor recommended waiting to see how the symptoms evolved.
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