Oak Brook audiologist offers free hearing aids for those in need

The economic slowdown has reached the Oak Brook community and audiologist Ronna Fisher knows it better than anyone.

“More and more local residents can’t afford hearing aids,” said the founder of Hearing Health Center in Oak Brook. “It’s painful to see.”

So painful that Fisher has started a new program at her Oak Brook facility. Patients who can’t qualify for standard financing will be eligible to receive new hearing aids for free.

“These aren’t recycled hearing aids,” Fisher said. “These are new but unsold devices. We’ve purchased 100 sets of the hearing aids ourselves for $150,000. If patients come in, have a hearing problem and can’t get financing, we’ll provide the devices for free. Patients will just be charged a small dispensing fee.”

Fisher said all such transactions will be completely confidential.

This is the latest initiative from the Fisher Foundation for Hearing Health Care. The organization’s mission is to enhance lives through better hearing.

For eight years it has sponsored educational events about hearing protection and provided free state-of-the art $150 ear plugs to soldiers deployed to combat. (Of the 1.3 million Afghan/Iraq veterans, almost 300,000 are now on disability due to damaged hearing or severe tinnitus).

With Hearing Health Centers in Chicago, Naperville and Highland Park, as well as Oak Brook, the foundation’s efforts are area-wide. Hearing aids also are offered free to patients who cannot afford them in Naperville and Highland Park centers. Fisher never thought the need for help would ever be in the more affluent suburbs.

“We’re all stretched these days,” she said. “I see it among my friends and neighbors, and I see it among my patients.

“We have to keep innovating,” Fisher said. “We were the first center in the world to fit in-the-ear hearing aids and the first in the U.S. to fit the tiny in-the-canal aids. We’ve been peer-judged as one of the nation’s top audiology practices for the last two years.

“But all that means nothing if patients can’t afford our services,” Fisher added. “This new program is my chance to give something back to the community that’s supported us since we opened here.”

The Hearing Health Center’s Oak Brook facility is located in the Oakbrook Professional Center Building, 120 Oakbrook Center, Suite 709. For details, call (847) 681-7000.