Audiologist knows no borders

GH doctor offers the gift of hearing to children in need

Susan Schell

of the Gateway

Dr. Laura Day recently returned from Buenos Aires, but she was not on vacation. Day had traveled to Argentina to join other U.S. professionals in bringing the gift of hearing to children at a school for the deaf.

Day and her associates worked side-by-side at Mutualidad Argentina de Hipoacusicos, a non-profit agency in Buenos Aires, fitting more than 100 children with hearing aids donated by Oticon.

Day has been an audiologist for 21 years. Her business, Harbor Audiology and Hearing Services on Point Fosdick Drive, offers hearing diagnostic testing and focuses on tinitis and problems with dizziness.

Day has been involved with an organization called “Healing the Children” for five years. During a professional dinner meeting, she met an ear, nose and throat physician who was involved in non-profit work. The group was looking for someone to perform hearing tests overseas.

“I said, ‘Sign me up,’ ” Day said. “I’m a mission trip junkie. I was looking for something like this. Either you’re that kind of person, or you’re not.”

Day said the high number of children with hearing loss in that part of the country is largely due to the lack of prenatal health care.

“In Argentina, we encountered all types of hearing loss, from moderate to severe,” she said. “Some mothers were sick when they were pregnant and they contracted Rubella.”

Although it was Day’s first missionary trip to Argentina, she said she’s visited Guatemala five times on similar expeditions.

“It was the hardest work I’ve ever done,” she said. “But the most rewarding. You make a difference in the lives of a lot of kids. It’s interesting to experience a different culture in a different place.”

Day — tall with green eyes and blonde hair — humorously recalls the surprised expressions of some Guatemalans when they saw her the first time. Most of the natives are generally dark-skinned and short in stature. She described the Guatemalans she saw as country people who live in the mountains.

Day said inter-familial breeding could be a source of the high number of hearing problems in the children.

“A lot of the kids with hearing problems don’t go to school,” she said. “They hang out with their moms and scavenge for things. They create their own system of sign language so they can communicate.”

One jewel that Day and other missionaries bring back from these trips is the ability to not take things for granted.

“We have no right to complain here,” she said. “When you come back, you become less tolerant of people who whine all the time.”

Day is looking forward to her next trip to Guatemala in August.

“It’s what I was meant to do,” she said. “We all have our mission in life.”

Reach reporter Susan Schell at 253-853-9240 or by e-mail at susan.schell@gateline.com.