Hearing specialist visits centre in region

Ingeborg Hochmair will tour the Yorkshire Cochlear Implant Service (YCIS) at Bradford Royal Infirmary which treats hundreds of patients from across the region and further afield.

Dr Hochmair, of the Austrian hearing implant company MED-EL, will attend a presentation of the Bradford HeaRRing Group, a team of eminent researchers and scientists plus experts from the York University, at the infirmary's Listening for Life Centre which hosts the implant service.

Ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialist Chris Raine said: "In medicine, and in particular among ENT professionals, Inge has been an enormous driving force in the world of cochlear implantation and is one of the main world developers of hearing implant systems

"We are delighted that she is in Bradford today to see the work of the YCIS."

Dr Hochmair will make a donation to the Ear Trust charity set up by Mr Raine for its Listening for Life Centre Appeal, which will go towards sponsoring a research audiologist, based between the centre and York University, to help assess patients for cochlear implants.

The charity, which was created to help people with significant hearing loss and other ear-related problems, is trying to raise 300,000 to buy new equipment for the centre.

Bradford has one of the best equipped cochlear implant units in the country.

More than 600 adults and children have received cochlear implants since the centre opened.

MED-EL also has Yorkshire links. Its UK company recently moved from Holmfirth to larger premises in Barnsley to accommodate an expanding team.