Polaneczky: VA was deaf to disabled vet
Raymond Kielich doesn't like to bad-mouth people. Especially people at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Coatesville, whose staff, he says, has taken good care of him for years.
Raymond Kielich doesn't like to bad-mouth people. Especially people at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Coatesville, whose staff, he says, has taken good care of him for years.
I'm not as nice as Kielich. So allow me to call out the VA for locking him in a world of silence rather than cutting through whatever stupid policies have kept him from getting the hearing aids he needs so desperately.
Kielich, 96, is a World War II Navy veteran who's awfully independent for a man who's legally blind, is severely hearing-impaired, and uses a red motorized scooter to get around.
Until the spring, he lived alone in an apartment in St. Davids, Delaware County. But he had become too frail to fix his meals or dress without help. So he moved to Brandywine at Haverford Estates, an assisted-living residence, where he hoped to enjoy life among people like him - men and women with lively minds who need a hand with the basics of daily living.
Before he moved in, Kielich's hearing aids stopped working. He shipped them off to the VA for repairs, as usual, and expected them back within a week. He says he was told they were unfixable. So he asked for a new set - but was told he'd have to wait until the spring of 2017.
"They said something about there being a limit on how often you can get new hearing aids," Kielich says. "I wasn't eligible yet."
His daughter, Paula, who lives close by and acts as his advocate, was floored. Her dad, a retired dentist, is on a fixed income, and his fees at the assisted-living facility are significant. Neither he nor she can afford the $3,000 to $4,000 cost of hearing aids. She contacted U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan for help. But Meehan's district representative for military and veterans affairs, Bill Dondero, had no luck persuading anyone at the VA to consider a waiver in Kielich's case.
"He's in a tough situation," says Dondero.
Kielich has been getting by with crappy, over-the-counter "amplifiers" - tiny over-the-ear devices that amplify sound but without the precision that his broken hearing aids once did.
Those aids had been prescribed by an audiologist at the VA who tested Kielich's hearing levels. The tests discerned the tones Kielich could hear and the ones he couldn't, which helped determine the model of hearing aid that would best accommodate his disability. The audiologist then made molds of Kielich's ears so that the new aids could be created to fit snugly.
"They were great," says Kielich. "I could hear voices without background noise interfering."
He could also pass quiet afternoons listening to history books on tape, since macular degeneration (a retinal deterioration) has left him unable to read.
"I only see blurry shapes," he said during our visit together at Brandywine.
The amplifiers he's using keep falling out. And when he goes to dinner or group activities at Brandywine, he can't discern who's saying what. So he sits silently, waiting for someone to speak to him directly.
"People don't know me. What if they think I'm being aloof?" he asks. "It's very isolating."
So there he's supposed to sit, all by his lonesome, until spring? It's awful. Not just because Kielich can't get to know his new neighbors, but because they can't get to know him, either.
They don't get to hear his tales of being aboard the Osage, where he thrilled to the sight of flying fish one sunny afternoon in the Panama Canal. Or how, even though he was a dentist for the Navy, he also treated soldiers in the Marines and Army because those military branches hadn't recruited enough dentists. And of how his mentors in the Navy insisted that every sailor be treated with the same care that Kielich would give his own family.
Kielich brought that empathy into his dental practice when he returned home, eventually training as a pediatric dentist, operating his own practice and teaching future students in Washington. He retired at 65, and was widowed shortly after moving to this area to be closer to his daughter.
"I have no grandchildren," he says. "The children I treated were like my children, I guess. They were delightful."
He has stories about them, too, if only he could share them.
This is no way to treat a U.S. military vet, let alone any old person, says Jason Wigand, a doctor of audiology and spokesman for the public-relations committee of the American Academy of Audiology.
"Hearing is a sensitive system; it helps keep our other sensory systems active by allowing other stimuli to enter our brains," says Wigand. "Research shows a greater incidence of dementia and depression in those with untreated hearing loss."
Kielich deserves better.
Kirk Fernitz, a spokesman for the Coatesville VA, wasn't able to speak in detail about Kielich's case when I contacted him for comment. But within a day, Kielich got good news.
"The VA called my dad and he has an appointment this week to get fitted for new hearing aids!" said Paula Kielich. "Talk about the power of the press!"
It's depressing that a World War II vet couldn't get anyone at the VA to take his need seriously until a columnist's call shamed them into it. But Kielich wasn't in a mood to be bitter when I shouted my congratulations at him over the phone.
"This is terrific!" he said.
He can't wait to hear all he's been missing at his new residence. His new neighbors will be delighted to hear all they've been missing from him, too.
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