Naven now hears his best thanks to Oticon Medical and Ear Community for donating new Ponto hearing device

Naven Ramirez, BMA age 5 of the Philippines, receives (2) newly donated Oticon Medical Ponto 3’s on October 6th, 2017.

Meet Naven R. Osic.  Navin is a five-year-old boy who was born with bilateral Microtia and Atresia. Naven lives with his mother, Donna and step-father in a small room in the Philippines.  When Donna was pregnant with Naven, she made sure to follow all her doctor’s orders, and be very careful because she wanted her child to be healthy and ready for the world.  She was shocked then, when Naven was born missing both of his ears!  It was the first time Donna had ever seen little ears, and her heart ached for how her son was going to adjust to life.

Fast-forward five years, and Naven started going to a day care school.  He struggled making friends and socializing, and complained to his mother that he couldn’t hear his teacher and couldn’t catch up on his lessons.  Naven was also bullied by his classmates and even some of their parents.  This was when Donna decided she had to take action.  Up until then, she had been unable to afford even the appointments to find out what options were available to help Naven hear.

Donna and Naven met with an ENT at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) and received some heartbreaking news.  The doctor said that because of Naven’s bilateral hearing loss, his speech and hearing would continue to decline and he would struggle more and more in social and educational settings.  They were referred to an audiologist where they discovered that Naven had moderate to severe conductive hearing loss and would need bilateral bone conduction devices to help him hear.

Luckily, someone was watching out for Naven! His audiologists knew about the Ear Community Organization. Donna immediately reached out to Ear Community, and applied for bone conduction devices. On October 6th, 2017, Naven was awarded and fitted with two brand new Ponto 3 bone conduction hearing devices that were donated by Oticon Medical through the Ear Community Organization.  We wish to offer a very special thank you to Icee Piedad with Oticon Medical in the Philippines.  We could not have made this possible without all her help navigating the medical system in a different country. Icee not only helped us get the devices to the Philippines, but she also donated her time and services to help fit and program Naven’s new Oticon Medical bone anchored hearing systems. Thank you especially to Oticon Medical for donating the two new Ponto Plus hearing devices to Naven.  He would not be hearing today and so much better at home and in school if it were not for Oticon Medical.

Donna said, “Naven quickly responded to Ms. Icee when he put on his 2 brand-new Ponto 3’s.  I’m so much happy for my son because your prestigious group Ear Community chose Naven to have a BAHA.  I will take care his Ponto like I care (of) Naven.”  The best part was when she said, “Naven now is very happy, he clearly hear(s) what we are saying. He can easily keep up (with) the lesson when he is at school.”

A very special thank you to Alan Raffauf, Vice President of Marketing for Oticon Medical US, for choosing to donate the new Oticon Medical Ponto 3 to Ear Community so that they could be donated to Naven to help him hear better in and outside of the school classroom. Thank you for everyone’s support and for helping Ear Community continue with its mission of helping individuals with Microtia and Atresia. Oticon Medical believes in helping individuals with hearing loss so that they can live a better quality of life. Oticon Medical is a well-respected international hearing device manufacturer that is a part of the “William Demant Group [which has] 100-plus years of experience in audiology and sound processing and established manufacturing and logistics infrastructure.”

“We are so happy that we could help Naven hear better around the clock so he can now keep up in school, make friends, and enjoy quality time with his family.  He deserves to live the life he was meant to live and enjoy being a happy little five-year-old.  Thank you to everyone who was involved in making this all possible for Naven to obtain her hearing devices.” – Naven’s Family.

We are over the moon that you can hear so much better now Naven!  We hope you thrive in school and hear the sounds of everyday now.
Hugs from all of us at Ear Community
www.EarCommunity.org