‘Outraged and frightened:’ Island Deaf and Hard of Hearing Centre in Nanaimo shuts down

You can view the ICHHC announcement here.

Robertson said they tried to continue operating following those cuts, while communicating with various provincial ministries to try to secure core funding for their programs.

She said the gap between revenue and expenses expanded, while financial support from the government dwindled as not-for-profits all over are feeling the pinch with a downturn in donations and government grants increasingly difficult to secure.

“There are no more services, and that’s what we’ve been very clearly saying to government: we can’t keep doing this. The Sound of Change program has been in existence for ten years. For ten years, we’ve provided $9M worth of free, refurbished hearing aids to 1,300 people across Vancouver Island, in 47 communities. This is not sustainable from a not-for-profit section…the reality is, this a program that should be funded by Health.”

Robertson said their programs also focus on more than a person’s health.

ICHHC also emphasizes social development and sense of belonging with the deaf community having its own language and culture.

She said they were in the process of looking for a new, larger location in Nanaimo, but those plans have now fallen by the wayside, with 16 employees now out of a job, four of them from Nanaimo.

“There’s a very large contingent of deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals, especially all the way up to Campbell River, all the way down to Nanaimo and down in the Duncan area. Our goal was certainly to find something where we could, once again, not unlike our Victoria office, create space and opportunity for the community to come together.”

Along with their locally delivered program, like Sound of Change and providing employment services, IDHHC also provided interpretation and captioning services across the province.

American Sign Language (ALS) interpreter and instructor Nigel Howard became a familiar face during the COVID-19 pandemic, regularly joining B.C. provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry for updates, organized by IDHHC.

The IDHHC announcement comes less than two weeks after B.C. became the first province in Canada to allow retail and online sales of non-prescription hearing aids for adults with mild to moderate hearing loss.

Subscribe to our daily news wrap. Local news delivered to your email inbox every evening. Stay up to date on everything Nanaimo and Oceanside.

info@nanaimonewsnow.com

Follow us on: Twitter (X) | Bluesky | Facebook

by Jordan Davidson

‘Outraged and frightened:’ Island Deaf and Hard of Hearing Centre in Nanaimo shuts down

More Local News