ISU audiology team gives hearing aids and tests to Peruvian villagers

For the third year in a row, a group of students and faculty from Idaho State University went on a humanitarian trip to Peru.

They provided health services, including new hearing aids, for hundreds of Peruvian villagers.

Bailey Neuhaus, a third-year audiology student at ISU, along with three faculty members from the audiology department, spent 10 days in and around Cuzco, Peru over spring break in March.

They went to five different villages. Each day when they went to a village, they set up clinic. They tested how well their eardrums were functioning, testing their hearing, asked if there was any ear pain, cleaned out lots of earwax from their ears so they could hear better and if they qualified, gave them a new hearing aid.

“What I really appreciated is that we were seeing the same concerns that we see in the states every day in clinics and class,” Neuhaus said. “I thought that was really neat because it just goes to show that communication is important and being able to hear to communicate is important across different countries, and languages.”

During their trip, the audiology team saw more than 200 villagers in their clinics and ended up fitting 24 people with new hearing aids, along with a year’s supply of batteries.

Neuhaus said she was touched by how grateful all the villagers were and that clinics were her favorite part of the trip.

She said they got to visit the Incan ruins and climb Macchu Piccu, which she loved. But she said working the clinics and meeting the villagers was her favorite part.

She said she plans to try and go back next year.

“I absolutely loved it,” she added. “I had a feeling that outreach is what I want to do when i graduate and it just solidified all that for me.”

The clinics were done as part of a mission with Idaho Condor, a nonprofit that provides medical care to Peruvians in need. The clinics included other areas of health care too, like nursing, dental care, women’s health and pharmacy.