GUATEMALA CITY – Moises Savala traveled eight hours overnight by bus from his ramshackle town in the Guatemalan jungle just to get his ears examined.
He was one of 111 Guatemalans who audiologists Mike Mallahan and Shonie Hannah examined during a hectic six days volunteering in a Guatemala City clinic for the nonprofit group Healing the Children. Mallahan works in Mill Creek, Hannah in Mount Vernon.
Savala, 25, said that several months ago he went to a doctor in his hometown of Santa Elena seeking help for his longtime hearing problem. But he said all the doctor did was prescribe pills that didn’t seem to do anything.
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Mallahan peered into Savala’s ear with a magnified light and found a blockage in the middle ear space. The obstruction, which had probably been caused by a chronic ear infection, explained at least some of Moises’ severe hearing loss, Mallahan said.
He then ushered Savala into a purple-blue shower stall, the quietest place Mallahan could find to test how Savala reacted to tones of various sound levels and frequencies.
Mallahan was working out of a medical clinic run by the nonprofit Pediatric Foundation of Guatemala. The X-ray room in which he greeted patients was not designed for hearing exams.
The test results showed that Savala had nerve damage that disrupted the flow of sound waves to his brain. That part of his hearing problem could be overcome in part by one of the donated hearing aids Mallahan had brought with him from the United States.
Mallahan also recommended a more detailed checkup to determine if surgery could remove the ear blockage. But he realized that Savala may never get the treatment he needs, unless he gets it from another Healing the Children doctor or audiologist.
Savala, who planned to return to Santa Elena that same day, was one of several patients who traveled hours by bus to see Mallahan and Hannah. The hearing aids alone made the trips worth the time and expense.
They typically cost more than $300 in Guatemala. The pediatric foundation charged $3. Mallahan said Guatemalan doctors told him there is no permanent low-cost hearing clinic in the country.
Greta Betancur also received a hearing aid. Betancur, 17, started losing her hearing four years ago after she received medication for a throat infection, said her mother, Evangelina Alguilar, 50.
Mallahan said the culprit may have been the antibiotic Gentamicin, which gets rid of infections but sometimes causes total hearing loss. In the United States, the drug is usually used in small doses and patients are monitored for possible hearing problems. That monitoring often doesn’t occur in Guatemala, Mallahan said.
“We’ve seen it time after time: People who had normal hearing as a kid and then when they were treated lost their hearing,” he said.
Greta was lucky. She now has a device that dramatically improves her hearing. Thousands of other Guatemalans suffer in silence.
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