So nice she did it twice: Osseo audiologist provides gift of hearing

Heidi Hill recently shared the gift of hearing with other less fortunate people on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

Hill is an Osseo audiologist at Hearing Health Clinic. She volunteered a week of her time and traveled to Malawi, Africa with the group Hearing the Call. This nonprofit’s mission is “to eliminate the gap for patients in order to ensure everyone is given the opportunity for dignified, quality hearing health care that changes lives.”

Hill’s passion

For the past 28 years, Hill has worked as an audiologist. “I started out in graduate school as a speech pathology student, but during my coursework, I felt connected to audiology,” she said. “I have had the opportunity to practice audiology in a number of different capacities, including ENT, hearing aid training for a hearing aid manufacturer, and private practice.”

She said she is passionate about assessing and treating functional hearing abilities.

Hill has been in practice since 2007, starting in Hopkins. In 2011, she opened another location in Osseo. Since 2015, she has just had her clinic in Osseo. She wanted to stay close to home. “I grew up in this area, graduating from Park Center, many years ago, so I have roots here,” Hill said. “I am also a member of the Osseo Lions, who helped fund my trip [to Malawi].”

She added her clinic in Osseo is unique compared to other traditional hearing clinics.

“We go beyond the traditional beep-beep test, which tells us very little about how people hear in the real world, where sound is much more complex,” she said. “We test and treat the entire auditory system ear-to-brain, which includes hearing-in-noise, auditory processing and tinnitus.”

Hill added the clinic focuses on educating patients on why they are experiencing the difficulties that they present and what their options are for help.

Mission trip

She is a part of a collaboration of audiologists around the country who work together to give back.

“Our give-back arm is Hearing the Call, a 501(c)3,” Hill said. “We have teams that go to approximately 13 different countries all over the world where we have local partners to ensure sustainability, and there is an opportunity for development. Many of us also have local Hearing the Call programs including our local program, Hearing the Call Twin Cities.”

Even though Hill has been a part of the cooperative for over a decade and has worked with the local group, last year was the first opportunity she had to travel overseas. She was able to go to South Africa twice.

“Our group of audiologists was contacted by a philanthropist,YouTuber Mr. Beast, who wanted to fit 1,000 people with hearing aids with hearing loss worldwide in one month,” she said. “I didn’t even have a passport, but two weeks later I was in South Africa going from our 24+ flight directly to a hearing clinic where we had the pleasure of helping several hundred people.”

She loved the experience so much, she went again in September. On these trips, she met Alinane, an audiologist from Malawi, Africa, who told Hill about an overwhelming need for help there.

“I could not believe that there are more than 20 million people in Malawi and only three hospitals,” Hill said. “She told me she wanted Hearing the Call to help in Malawi and I promised her that if we ever did, I would be there.”

Hill said preparing for her trips takes a lot of work, including preparing for mosquitoes that may carry Malaria. It also included figuring out what supplies would be most helpful.

“I knew that there were significant middle ear problems, so I knew that traditional hearing aids would not work for several people there,” she said. “I packed up some older bone-anchored hearing aids and I was able to fit two children. One was a 17-year-old, the age of my daughter. She had not heard for 13 years due to chronic, untreated hearing loss. She dropped out of school because of her hearing. It’s emotional still to me that with the bone-anchored hearing aid, her hearing was completely restored. She heard as she did before all the infections.”

Hill said her trip to Malawi showed her a “beautiful” people and country. She said the country is called the Warm Heart of Africa. “They are the most lovely people – kind, happy, and content despite having so little,” she said. “I was able to work alongside my friend and colleague Alinane and her nine audiology students.”

She said that the other audiologists from the cooperative were quite amazing. “It’s an incredible experience to work alongside other great audiologists and make very difficult conditions work,” she added.

During her time in Malawi, Hill visited three rural communities with access to small clinics. She said several people walked miles to come for aid.

“I fit a woman my age with hearing aids and she said, ‘I am very happy and I will walk back home proud,’” she said. “I asked how far home was: [it was] 10 miles. It was 7 p.m. at that point and she had to walk 10 miles by herself in the dark and all she could say was that she was happy and proud because she could hear again.”

Hill and her fellow audiologists saw approximately 500 people during the three days, but unfortunately turned away over 100 each day because there was not enough daylight.

“The clinic is set up so that patients start at intake then go to otoscopy,” she said. “If there was wax, they went to wax removal and if there was a medical issue like infection they went to the ENT who joined us from the University of South Florida.”

If there was no wax or once the wax was removed, they went to hearing screening. If they passed, they were done, if not they went to hearing testing. Hill said if there was any hearing loss, custom earmolds were made before getting fitted for hearing aids. Those receiving hearing aids also received one year’s worth of batteries.

“Most of the people who we fit have severe hearing losses, so they do not hear without hearing aids,” she said. “It’s incredibly rewarding to turn on a hearing aid and see, what we have come to call the ‘hearing smile.’”

Hill plans to continue making Hearing the Call trips.

“I have been asked to be a clinical lead on a trip next year, so I will be going on one of the trips,” she said. “I’m considering going to Mexico next year and taking my 20-year-old son with me. I’d like to go to Zambia, Jordan, and I will also most likely go back to Malawi.”