It took a friendly push from a neighbour to get Dawn moving.

Dawn Digweed accepted that her hearing was in decline, but it took a friendly push from a caring neighbour to set her on the path to better hearing.

One of the major issues for people with hearing loss is struggling to follow group conversations, especially in noisy places. And it was no different for Dawn:

“I really struggled in restaurants and shopping centres, especially when I was not looking directly at the person who was speaking. Catching up with family and friends, I was always saying: ‘What was that?’ and then would watch their lips when they replied.”

Even though Dawn had walked past hearing clinics in the past and told herself many times, “I really should drop in there for a hearing test one of these days”, it never eventuated. Finally, it was a neighbour from the lifestyle village, which Dawn and her husband Roy call home, who got the ball rolling.

“Maggie had a fantastic result from her hearing aids and recommended I do something about it too. She even brought home all of the forms I needed to complete to qualify for free hearing tests and subsidised hearing aids through the Government Program.”

Dawn’s hearing test confirmed what she already knew. Roy encouraged Dawn to ‘top-up’ a little to get hearing aids with a few extra features than ones that were completely free through the Government Program, due to Dawn’s active social life and love for long chats with her daughter and granddaughters.

She loves her new receiver-in-canal hearing aids. They have rebalanced her hearing and automatically optimise settings for different listening environments. They are so small that it took her daughter two weeks to notice that she was wearing them.

She loves her new receiver-in-canal hearing aids. They have rebalanced her hearing and automatically optimise settings for different listening environments. They are so small that it took her daughter two weeks to notice that she was wearing them.