Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I said in my maiden speech, I draw great inspiration from the remarkable people living in my electorate of Ryan. One such person—and she is truly remarkable—is Mrs Dimity Dornan, AO, the 2010 Queensland of the Year and founder of the Hear and Say Centre. Dimity is a true inspiration. Graduating as part of the inaugural class of speech pathologists from the University of Queensland in 1964 at just 18 years of age, Dimity has dedicated over four decades of her life to improving the lives of the hearing impaired.

A particular incident that shaped Dimity’s life occurred early in her career when she came across a severely distressed young man sobbing in the gutter outside the hospital where she worked. Dimity tried to calm the man and asked what was wrong, suspecting he may have been in an accident or was seriously ill. The man became further distressed at this and would not speak to Dimity. As it turned out, he could not speak to her as he was a student from the school for the deaf. It was not until a teacher from the school came down and communicated with him in sign language that Dimity discovered that his problem was simply that he had forgotten his bus fare.

Dimity was moved by the isolation this man must have felt at not being able to convey such a simple, everyday problem. It moved her to dedicate her career to working with the hearing impaired, and, after many years of research and work in the field, in 1992 Dimity founded the first Hear and Say Centre in Brisbane, offering free-of-charge services for deaf children. Starting with just six children, the Hear and Say Centre now supports over 400 children and their families and has expanded to have another five centres in Queensland, with additional outreach services for remote and rural communities.

Dimity’s research found that parents are a child’s most natural language teachers, and the therapies taught at the centres build on this foundation, as parents can take the teaching home with them. The results have been extraordinary. As Dimity says, for the first time in history they have been able to prove that a group of children with hearing loss can develop speech and listening skills at the same rate as a group of hearing children of the same age and language ability. This has a profound effect on a child’s life.

As well as providing this audio-verbal therapy, the Hear and Say Centre is a world-class cochlear implant facility, providing the six years of intensive therapy that accompanies this transplant free of charge to children and their families. Dimity and her team are leading the world with this treatment and have found that a child who has a cochlear transplant and attends the Hear and Say Centre for treatment in Australia has a 92 per cent chance of attending a mainstream school, whereas a child in Europe with the same degree of hearing loss who receives a cochlear implant has just a 33 per cent chance. This difference is stark and to me is one of the clearest statistics demonstrating just how much benefit this centre provides.

I speak of Dimity Dornan and the Hear and Say Centre today not only to congratulate her for her achievements but also to remind the government of the enormous contribution she makes. The Hear and Say Centre is without a doubt one of the most worthy recipients of funding support, and I am determined to assist them. I will not stand quietly by if the government neglects the Hear and Say Centre when funding is needed. Dimity Dornan is a true inspiration, a leader and a role model. Her work with the Hear and Say Centre is invaluable. I commend her achievements and pledge my commitment to working with her in the future.