Give Josie an Earful

Josie might be part of a team that one day helps save your life. But the nurse who works at Tauranga hospital, including the Intensive Care Unit, gets by with just one ear. The Papamoa mum of three actually has two acoustic implements on either side of her head, but only one works. Josie became profoundly deaf at age two after contracting chicken pox. She learned to read lips, attended mainstream school, and graduated nursing college despite her deafness.

Josie received a government-funded cochlear implant in 2012. It allowed her for the first time to hear her children and understand speech without lip reading. But having one working ear is limiting: she rises to the challenge of taking notes about patients while they speak; she has trouble separating single voices in crowds and locating where voices are coming from. As Josie says “I finally realised why I struggle to hear my three children in the car. My implanted ear is on the right side. The left (non-hearing) side and behind me is where my children are sitting in the car. Every day, they are excitedly telling me a story and I am not able to hear them.”

Audiologists have told Josie a second cochlear implant would significantly improve her hearing. She could hear her patients, her kids and everyone else without worrying about which side they were speaking to – without reading lips. But in New Zealand a second cochlear implant for adults isn't funded. And that's where we are stepping in and hope others will too. Josie has lots of friends who want to help. So this is our page - the friends and supporters of Josie page - where we share what we are up to and how everyone can be part of the fun and action we are planning to raise that $40 k. We are going to get Josie that second implant so just like the rest of us, Josie has two working ears.