5 March 2025

Listen to Thato Cheele’s responses here:

Thato Cheele is an audiologist at Queen Mamohato Memorial Hospital, where she diagnoses, treats, and finds solutions for problems in a patient’s auditory system. She emphasises that hearing loss is a silent and often overlooked disability affecting millions worldwide.

To address this, Cheele uses awareness days like World Hearing Day to educate people about common mistakes that can lead to hearing loss. World Hearing Day is commemorated each year on March 3. In 2025, the world marked the World Hearing Day under the theme: “Changing Mindsets: Empower Yourself to Make Ear and Hearing Care a Reality for All!”

As part of her awareness efforts, Cheele spoke to Uncensored News Managing Editor, Pascalinah Kabi, about the importance of ear care, emphasising the need for greater awareness and preventive measures to protect hearing health.

Uncensored News: March 3 is World Hearing Day. Why is this day significant for you as an audiologist? 

Cheele: The 3rd of March is World Hearing Day. It is significant because it raises awareness about hearing loss, which is a silent and often overlooked disability that affects millions of people around the world.

Unlike visible disabilities, hearing loss can go unnoticed for years, leading to communication difficulties, social isolation and even reduced quality of life. Many people live with undiagnosed hearing loss, often attributing their difficulties to other factors, such as aging or environmental noise, rather than recognising that this is actually a hearing impairment.

We have data from the World Health Organization that shows that over 1.5 billion people around the world experience some degree of hearing loss. Unfortunately, this number is expected to rise due to factors like aging populations and avoidable things like noise exposure and even untreated ear infections. Unfortunately, a significant portion of these individuals who have hearing loss do not receive the care they need because of limited awareness, stigma or even lack of access to audiology services.

As an audiologist, World Hearing Day provides an opportunity to educate the public on the importance of hearing health, to advocate for early detection and treatment, and highlight prevention measures that can help reduce the risk of hearing loss. Early diagnosis and intervention are crucial as untreated hearing loss can impact speech and language development in children, and this affects their academic performance. Additionally, it can also lead to reduced work productivity and even contribute to cognitive decline in older adults.

Furthermore, this day also serves as a reminder that hearing loss is not just a medical issue, but a public health concern that requires increased efforts in screening, treatment and accessibility to hearing care services. Through public awareness campaigns, policy advocacy and improved access to hearing health care, we can ensure that more people receive timely diagnosis and appropriate interventions and ultimately an improved quality of life.

Uncensored News: What are some of the most common mistakes people make in ear care that can lead to avoidable hearing problems? 

Cheele: So, there are some common mistakes that people make when it comes to ear care that can lead to avoidable hearing problems.

The first one and biggest one, I believe, is using cotton swabs or other objects to clean the ears. So, there’s a misconception that we need to clean our ears. Actually, you can clean the outer part of the ear, but internally, you are not supposed to insert anything smaller than your elbow inside the ear.

Essentially, nothing is supposed to go inside. The earwax exists naturally and its purpose is to actually trap dust particles or anything that is not meant to be in the ear and drive it out. So, essentially, it is part of the self-cleaning mechanism of the ear.

And so, what we do when we insert these cotton swabs in the ear is we push wax deeper. This can actually result in wax impaction, leading to temporary hearing loss until that issue is resolved, or it can even cause injury that can even range up to tympanic membrane perforation, which is a very serious injury to the ear.

And then the other one is ignoring signs of ear infection. It starts with the pain and then you see some drainage from the ear. The more you ignore an ear infection; this can lead to complications when the ear infection is left untreated.

The other one is exposure to loud noise. This particularly is a problem because it results in noise-induced hearing loss. There are different aspects of this. Some people are exposed to loud noise at work, in which case they need to use ear protection. There are industries that are known for loud noise, and there are companies that fortunately are now aware and being very strict with providing hearing protection for their workers exposed to loud noise. Now, this works in two ways. The worker has to also wear the hearing protection properly and effectively, and management has to provide it.

Then, there are other people who are exposed to loud noise recreationally. A lot of young people, teenagers, use headphones for long hours, using them at loud volumes. This exposes the ear to a lot of loud noise. And some have loud recreational activities, and this also leads to development of noise-induced hearing loss. Noise-induced hearing loss is totally avoidable if we reduce the loud noise exposure to our ears and protect our ears in situations that could be unavoidable.

The fourth one is what a lot of people actually do not do, which is seek regular hearing check-ups. It is recommendable that annually you do your hearing check-ups just to ensure that your hearing is still normal. This is because not having regular check-ups results in delayed diagnosis in most cases that involve hearing problems.

Uncensored News: What are the most common hearing problems treated at Queen Mamohato Memorial Hospital (QMMH)? 

Cheele: At Queen Mamohato Memorial Hospital, the issues concerning hearing that we treat the most are noise-induced hearing loss, which is acquired in adults, as well as presbyclosis, which is your age-related hearing loss in the elderly.

And we also have a lot of cases of cerumen impaction. So, this results in temporary hearing loss. And then we also have middle-ear conditions, and in children, we will see that this is mostly otitis media, which results in conductive hearing loss.

Uncensored News: How accessible are audiology services in Lesotho, and what challenges do patients face in getting the care they need? 

Cheele: Unfortunately, audiology services in Lesotho are still very limited, with only a few trained audiologists and specialised facilities available. Many patients face challenges, such as having to travel long distances, because a lot of our districts still do not have these services. So, they must travel long distances to reach healthcare centres, and this also leads to financial constraints.

Also, a lack of awareness about hearing care, because it is still so limited. Some people may not know about how to deal with a hearing loss, in a case where they may experience it or have a relative or a child who has a hearing loss. Additionally, hearing aids and assistive devices can be expensive and not readily available, so this makes it difficult for those who need to access proper treatment.

Uncensored News: What advice would you give to parents and caregivers to help protect children’s hearing from an early age?

Cheele: Parents and caregivers need to help protect their children’s hearing from a very early age, and some of the things that they can do include, the very first is to ensure that the child receives newborn hearing screening to detect any issues early on.

Now, what I love about newborn hearing screening is that as soon as the baby is born, within the first few days of life, they can actually get a test that detects or determines their hearing abilities.

This is something that we do at Queen Mamohato Memorial Hospital, but unfortunately, as I said, audiology services are very limited in Lesotho, and so a lot of the other public hospitals in the country do not provide this service.

What does this mean? It does not mean that all hope is lost for the other parents whose newborns do not receive this hearing screening. There are things that parents can also look out for, such as communication milestones. Now, things like your baby’s response to their name around the age of seven to nine months, the baby should be able to recognise and respond to their name when you call them.

They should be babbling, and within their first year of life, they should have at least said their first word. If your child is verbal around that point, whether they are cooing or babbling, they respond to their name, then you know that there is some hearing there.

But, if you see them not doing any of these things, not responding to their name, not responding to sound when you are standing behind them, not making verbal sounds, such as babbling or saying their first word, these are some of the things that should cause concern. You can go to your healthcare facility to make them aware that you have some concerns regarding a child’s communication milestones.

The other one is to avoid exposure to loud noise. A lot of people do not realise how damaging loud noise can be, and to every person in general, but when it comes to parents, for their children, they should really make sure that they limit the loud noise exposure for their children. If there is no need for children to be in that loud environment, do take them out of that environment, or do control volume levels around the children.

 If it is necessary for the parent to be in that environment, make sure to put earplugs on their children. And then treating ear infections promptly to prevent complications. So as soon as you realise that your child has an ear infection or signs, whether it’s pain, do take them to your nearest healthcare facility to be treated promptly.

And then avoiding the use of cotton swabs for everyone, particularly for children. Parents do take on the responsibility for taking care of their children, and this includes their health and their ears, and the conditions of their ears.

Some parents will use these cotton swabs or objects, sharp objects, sometimes even in their children’s ears in efforts to clean their ears, and this can actually be very dangerous for the child. So, avoid the use of these cotton swabs.

If your child, you believe there is something in their ear, or the child needs attention to remove something from the ear, take them to your nearest healthcare facility. And then regular monitoring and ear check-ups to monitor the hearing health of the child is important to ensure that they have good hearing and can fully participate in the classroom and in their learning experience.

That is why it is important to take care of your child’s ears and hearing, just to put them, set them up nicely for the learning environment and for their general development.