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New service for hearing-impaired children in Blackburn

The Health and Aged Care Minister, Rob Knowles, has officially opened the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital service at the Taralye Audiology and Otology Centre at Blackburn.

"The joint initiative by the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital and Taralye to establish a spoke service has improved specialist services for people living in the north eastern, eastern and south eastern suburbs," Mr Knowles said.

"Taralye — a family-centred organisation — in partnership with the hospital, provides children and their families with the best quality services much closer to their local community."

The Victorian Government provides funding of more than $688,000 per year to Taralye.

Under the "hub-and-spoke" model highly specialised services are maintained at one or two locations — the "hubs" — while high volume or lower complexity services are provided in distant locations — the "spokes".

The Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital already operates ophthalmology "spoke" services at two locations, Maroondah Hospital and the Broadmeadows Health Service; and Taralye is the first "spoke" otology initiative.

The service focuses on the diagnosis and management of children with either temporary or permanent hearing loss.

"Services such as otology are complex, technology intensive and often very costly. Because of the numbers of people requiring the service, it has been concentrated on a small number of inner suburban sites," Mr Knowles said.

Children from the eastern suburbs referred to the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital will now be treated at Taralye unless their condition warrants specialist clinical or surgical intervention in the city.

(News Release, Office of the Minister for Health and Aged Care, July 28, 1999)