Earbus Foundation wins regional award for its relentless work to combat middle ear disease in children

A charity that works relentlessly to cure middle ear disease in the Pilbara has been named the best large organisation at the Pilbara for Purpose Community Service Awards. The Earbus Foundation of WA runs six mobile bus clinic programs throughout the State, including three in the Pilbara, which bring urgent audiological care to children in remote areas. The award ceremony was held at the Esplanade Hotel in Port Hedland on September 9 and their win recognised the work of their Pilbara programs. Organisation co-founder and chief executive Dr Lara Shur said it was important to bring support to remote areas who would normally have to travel enormous distances for audiological assistance. “Our clinics are based around the premise of bringing services to children,” she said. “We don’t sit in a health clinic and wait for families to come to us. “The team goes out for a week every month and the team consists of a nurse, a GP or nurse practitioner who prescribes medication, and an audiologist who tests for hearing.” Aboriginal children have 10 times the rate of middle ear disease compared with non-Aboriginal children and on average spend 32 months of their first five years with middle ear disease. Dr Shur said Aboriginal children were also at risk of developing middle ear disease earlier than non-Aboriginal children. “For Aboriginal children, the first ear infection could happen as early as two weeks of age compared to a non-Aboriginal child where that first ear infection is more likely to occur at 18 months to 2½ years age,” she said. “The impact that has on an Aboriginal child’s early learning and development is enormous. “Ear disease can cause hearing loss and if you have hearing loss you don’t develop your understanding, spoken language, and all that social development that happens in those first three to four years. “Children could be sitting in a classroom and they can’t hear a teacher, so they will be mislabeled as naughty or uncooperative when they just have a hearing problem.” Middle ear disease can be caused by a range of factors such as a lack of access to clean drinking water, hygiene facilities, fire smoke, and genetic factors. The World Health Organisation’s benchmark for middle ear disease in a population is below 4 per cent. In the East Pilbara middle ear disease was as high as 52 per cent at one point. Through Earbus’ work, the instance of middle ear disease in the Pilbara was 20 per cent in 2021. Dr Shur said the award recognition was nice but the foundation was still working to get the prevalence of middle ear disease below the WHO figure. “Our program’s aim is to push it below the WHO benchmark,” she said. “Otitis media is a preventable disease, it shouldn’t happen, and we know we can push it below that benchmark because we have done it in so many different communities across WA.” The Earbus Foundation has three programs in the Pilbara — north, south, and east — which services the communities around Newman, Onslow, and Port Hedland. The Earbus Foundation’s Pilbara operations are supported by the Wirraka Maya Health Service Aboriginal Corporation and the Puntukurnu Aboriginal Medical Service. Dr Shur said the success of the foundation would not be possible without the support of these organisations and the Pilbara community.