The Vitebsk Oblast Diagnostics Center received medical equipment for its speech and hearing correction department as a gift from the Embassy of Poland and the public charity organization Verbalik on 8 February, BelTA has learned.

Head physician of the diagnostics center Vladimir Orekhva told reporters, they have received an impedance audiometer, a system for registering otoacoustic emissions Eclipse. Denmark-made, the equipment cost over €40,000. It allows diagnosing hearing disorders fast without having to visit a faraway medical institution in Minsk. It will also allow rehabilitating kids with hearing disorders since infancy. According to the source, the equipment will improve medical aid in Vitebsk Oblast, will allow introducing hearing screening for kids, will allow timely integration of kids with hearing disorders into the society.

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Poland to Belarus Leszek Szerepka, who attended the ceremony, said that the gift was a second project accomplished as part of the small grants program. The first one was implemented in Gomel in 2010. Back then equipment worth over €54,000 was purchased for the Gomel City Central Children’s Clinic.

The choice of Vitebsk was not accidental. Vitebsk Oblast helped Poland after the aircraft with the Polish head of state and top-ranking officials on board crashed near the Russian city of Smolensk. The Vitebsk airport welcomed aircraft with state dignitaries and relatives of those, who died in the aircraft crash, and they were later transported to the aircraft crash site by road. “Everything was organized very well. It is a very touching moment that we remember,” said Leszek Szerepka.

In Vitebsk Oblast there are about 7,000 children with hearing disorders, including 580 kids with neurosensory hearing disorders. Every year about 500 kids with hearing disorders are detected. Last year as many as 12,336 kids were born in the oblast, with hearing disorders found in 14 babies.