Mother of deaf daughter purchases $4,000 worth of Mattel dolls with cochlear implants for children with similar issues

NEW YORK — A mom in Westchester County is going the extra mile for her daughter, who was born with severe hearing loss.

CBS2’s Astrid Martinez shows us how a special gift allowed her daughter to feel seen and celebrate her uniqueness.

Many parents revel in the moment when their child talks for the first time.

“Our audiologist in New York City told us she was a hearing child and she would be great and go enjoy your baby,” Dana Savitsky said.

But shortly after Lila Savitsky’s first birthday, her mother realized her daughter’s communication was not progressing. She followed her mother’s intuition and took Lila to a new doctor.

“She did a neurological hearing test that should have taken 20 minutes and they took an hour and a half with her, and when they came out they told me that she was profoundly deaf. She was born deaf,” Dana Savitsky said.

The family hit the ground running. Lila got cochlear implants at 20 months old. So as far as Lila can remember, she has always been able to hear. She has grown so fond of her implants, she even calls them her super power that she can turn on and off.

“I don’t have to hear thunder and lightning and maybe like scary stuff, a scary movie, or when some big scary sound happens. I’m like, nope, not happening,” Lila Savitsky said.

But she did start to question why others didn’t have her ears.

Read on at https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/mother-of-deaf-daughter-purchases-4000-worth-of-mattel-dolls-with-cochlear-implants-for-children-with-similar-issues.

Inaccessible Telehealth Apps Don’t Just Exclude – They’re A Matter Of Life And Death

The Covid-19 pandemic reshaped the healthcare landscape in a myriad of ways – mainstreaming multiple elements that were previously non-existent or on the periphery.

Face masks and vaccination websites are all here to stay at some level or another but the most seismic shift has undoubtedly been the explosion in telehealth in the form of remote medical consultations.

At the outset of the pandemic, telemedicine comprised less than 1% of primary care visits but this figure had skyrocketed to 43.5% within two short months.

Now the genie is out of the bottle and telemedicine consultations in healthcare are about as normalized in day-to-day life as Zoom calls are in business.

Read the rest at https://www.forbes.com/sites/gusalexiou/2022/06/29/inaccessible-telehealth-apps-dont-just-exclude–theyre-a-matter-of-life-and-death/?sh=762a86f9493c&emci=ecb910b5-5dfd-ec11-b47a-281878b83d8a&emdi=a92307de-0dfe-ec11-b47a-281878b83d8a&ceid=2068718.