Categorie:

Social campaigns

Title of campaign:

LMT helps to improve hearing health in Latvia

short common description of the campaign::

Situation and problems overview

Hearing disturbances of children occur in a form of silent concealed disturbances,

as at the early age children cannot tell that they hear worse, thus hearing

disturbances which are not timely detected cause language as well as speech

development problems in the future life of a child, and later also psychological and

social failures.

On January 2007 the company Latvijas Mobilais Telefons (LMT) celebrated its

15th birthday. Wishing to make an investment in improvement of the public health

and being aware of significance of the hearing related problems in our country,

LMT decided to present hearing diagnostics apparatuses GSI 70 for all certified

maternity wards in Latvia.

On 2006 LMT presented cohlear implants for children having the diagnosis

"deafness", which were registered at Latvian Children’s Hearing Centre.

On 2008 specialized kindergarten nr.218. for children with permanent hearing

problems in Riga is equipped with Scola FM system.

research work done during the campaign:

Research

According to statistics in Latvia on average 3 - 4 % of children are born with

hearing problems of various levels. However, 90 % of timely detected departures

from norms can be cured. Though by 2007 in most cases in Latvia the parents

found out about hearing problems only when the child had to start to speak, but

due to unknown reasons the language progresses slowly or not at all. Hearing

disturbances which are not detected timely is the primary condition why your

child’s language develops inaccurate or does not develop at all, as the child can

learn and repeat only what he/she has heard perfectly. Likewise detection of the

hearing disturbances at the very early age of the child, when the development of

language centres is the most intensive, is of special importance.

Latvian Children’s Hearing Centre several times had drawn attention of the state

institutions on a significance of the problem of lack of apparatuses, however, did

not received any response from the side of state in this issue.

strategy:

Target group. Primary target group: maternity wards, medical staff, families.

Secondary target group: mass media and general public.

Campaign target:

1.To draw attention of the state institutions and the public on improvement of

hearing health in Latvia, by solving the newborn hearing screening problem

throughout the country.

2.To serve as a positive example for other companies encouraging them to take

part in solving of the issues of public importance.

3.To raise loyalty of LMT customers

Messages

1.LMT continues to be socially liable company and takes care for the public health

2.LMT in its birthday gives presents to other

3.Hearing health care in Latvia improves thanks to LMT support

Means of communications

1. Central and regional mass media

2. Seminars for medical staff

Implementation

1.In cooperation with the Latvian Children’s Hearing Centre we requested from the

Health Statistics and Medical Technology Agency a list of those medical

institutions of the Republic of Latvia having the certified maternity wards.

2. In one month we organised a formal handing over of apparatus to each medical

institution having a certified maternity award. The events were participated by

representatives of regional media and local governments, LMT management and

Dr. Sandra Kuske, Head of Latvian Children’s Hearing Centre. In most places the

new apparatus was demonstrated in operation upon the prior consent of the

parents.

3. central and campaign closing event was held in Riga Maternity Hospital on 15

February 2007. Doctors of Riga City and Riga region, media representatives, the

Minister of Health, representatives from the Riga City Council participated in the

event.

Results of the campaign and evaluation::

Direct results

~ With the LMT support the newborn hearing screening was implemented on the

country scale, what is internationally defined as Universal Newborn Hearing

Screening. Thus detection of permanent hearing disturbances is no more ,,matter

of chance’, but a complex of concrete measures based on examinations, enabling to

detect hearing disturbances of the children at the very early age, giving them one

of the greatest possibilities at life: to hear and to be heard.

~ state institutions ensure funds required for performance of manipulation from the

state budget

~ Comment by Dr.S.Kušķe, director of Latvian Children’s Hearing Centre: "From

my everyday experience I can only say that in my 14 years of professional

experience I have never consulted so many newborn children as this year (2008)

..."

~ LMT received a letters of thanks from hospitals

~ LMT got positive feedback from it’s customers

~ Feeling of moral satisfaction

~ Emotional plots in central and regional TV, radio, more than 100 publications

within a month

Indirect results

LMT got the 2nd place in the Reputation top 2007 of the companies