Tyler Redway
AUGUST is known as Tradie National Health Month, which promotes the use of proper safety equipment used in trades which can involve hazards towards sight, hearing and even smell.
Back in the day, hearing protection was quite uncommon in loud workplaces, sometimes due to how some jobs simply didn’t provide the proper equipment, causing significant hearing loss to anyone who may have worked in the industry.
Specsavers audiology professional Dr Peter Hoang said the majority of clients in the local area are farmers and tradies, usually in the older demographic.
“We have the mill down the road as well and a lot of my clients have worked there in their past years,” Mr Hoang said.
“Even some of our workers here, they’ve been working there for about 10 to 20 years before moving to work at Specsavers.”
Mr Hoang said he would first ask his clients if they had been working in a noisy environment, where a common response was that hearing protection sometimes didn’t exist in their workplaces.
“Then I would look at their hearing loss and it is very indicative of having noise-induced hearing loss or if they have done a lot of shooting then one side would be worse than the other,” he said.
“They are quite wary of it and it makes it very hard for them to deal with it over time and it usually catches up with them later down the track.”
Retired local tradie Trevor Buck, who was a painter by trade, said his work on the farm as a kid had severely affected his hearing and how it was difficult to get used to hearing aids.
“My early days, I would have been working old tractors chainsaws, ride-on lawnmowers anything with no ear protection,” Mr Buck said
“Over many years it has been going slowly but I didn’t realise it until probably a couple of years ago.”
Mr Buck added even if there was hearing protection during the time he spent on the farm, it would be the cheapest option available, which he said would be useless most of the time.
Mr Hoang said he is now starting to notice an increase in people aged 40 to 50 coming in to receive hearing aids, while he mentioned the more common age to start working with hearing loss is anything above the age of 65.
“You can still get hearing loss even with the hearing protection, but it’s at least much better than losing your whole hearing,” he said.
“Even though it should be more widely known, a lot of people nowadays still choose not to wear their hearing protection for various reasons.”
Mr Hoang said hearing loss can also be a problem with household chores like mowing the lawn, or even long music festivals.
“Whipper Snippers and lawnmowers can get up to about 90 to 100 decibels and if you’re gonna do that every weekend, that’s quite loud,” he said.
“You’ll see people these days, they are wear hearing protection while they’re mowing their lawn and it’s good to do so.
Mr Hoang suggested that in order to promote the proper protection for hearing, people should talk about their own experiences in loud environments, as well as taking care of their health through regular check-ups.
