An audiologist is a university qualified hearing health professional whose work is measuring hearing accurately, explaining what those measurements mean in everyday terms, and helping you decide what happens next. CQ Audiology runs a periodic visiting clinic in Blackall from a room at Blackall Hospital, 189 Landsborough Highway, QLD 4472. Our permanent rooms are at T33 & 34A, City Centre Plaza, 24 Fitzroy Street in Rockhampton, and the audiologist who travels west is the same clinician you would see there.
Visiting-clinic days vary by location. Please call (07) 4848 6528 to confirm the next available clinic in Blackall before travelling.
What an audiologist is actually measuring
Part of the job is technical. We find the softest sound you can detect at each pitch, check how the eardrum and middle ear are behaving, and work out whereabouts in the ear the difficulty sits. Part of it is far more ordinary. We want to know which conversations you keep losing: the phone at the back of the house, the two way radio, the kitchen table when three people are talking. The chart tells one half of the story and you tell the other, which is why an assessment runs closer to an hour than ten minutes.
Why the clinic comes to the hospital
Out here the arithmetic of a specialist appointment is brutal. A trip east is most of a day each way, a night away, fuel, and somebody minding the place while you are gone. So it gets deferred, one year turning into six while the television creeps up. Holding the clinic at Blackall Hospital takes nearly all of that away. Whether you walk across from town or come in off a property along the Landsborough Highway, the appointment is a couple of hours out of your day rather than a week out of your year. The room is quiet, the diagnostic equipment travels with the audiologist, and the standard is the same as in Rockhampton.
Wool country, machinery and a lifetime of sound
Blackall has been sheep and wool country since long before the Woolscour started turning on the Barcoo, and the district still marks itself out by the Black Stump. It is also country where people have spent forty or fifty years around shearing plant, generators, augers, chainsaws, bore engines and open cab tractors, mostly in an era when nobody handed out earmuffs with the smoko. We describe what we measure and leave it there. What an assessment gives you is an accurate picture of where your hearing sits today, and a dated record to compare against later.
Custom earplugs are worth raising while you are in the room. A plug moulded from an impression of your own ear tends to stay put through a full day in the shed, where foam ones so often come out for a conversation and never go back in.
Older graziers and the people who drive them in
A good share of our Blackall patients are in their seventies and eighties, and many arrive with a son, a daughter, a neighbour or a carer at the wheel. Bring them into the appointment if you are happy to. The person who rings you every Sunday often has the clearest information about where hearing is causing trouble, and two people remember more of a results conversation than one.
- Write down real examples before you come: missed calls, the volume on the radio, the grandchildren at Christmas.
- Bring current hearing aids with chargers, spare batteries and accessories, including the ones you gave up on.
- Mention past ear surgery, perforations or repeated infections.
- Bring your Medicare card, and your pensioner concession card or DVA card if you hold one.
- Mention at booking if you have had a cold, blocked ears or heavy wax lately.
Staying sorted between clinic days
The question we hear most from the far west is what happens if something goes wrong when the next clinic is weeks off. Most faults never need a clinic at all. Ring (07) 4848 6528 and we will work through it on the phone. A surprising number turn out to be a blocked wax filter, a tired battery, a dome that has come adrift, or moisture after hot weather. Batteries, domes, filters and cleaning tools can be posted out to Blackall, and where your hearing aids and phone support it, some adjustments can be made remotely. If a device truly has to come to us, we will tell you how to pack it and send it.
Where the cost sits
Money is the reason a lot of people out here never make the call, so we would rather be upfront. Eligible pensioner concession card and DVA card holders may access services under the Australian Government Hearing Services Program; eligibility criteria apply. Tell reception what you hold when you ring and we will confirm your position before the clinic day rather than on it. Any hearing aid we supply is included in the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG). Nobody is pushed toward a device on a visiting day, and for some people the sensible answer is a review in twelve months.
Booking a place at the next Blackall clinic
Call (07) 4848 6528 to find out when the audiologist is next in Blackall and to have your name added to the list, or email reception@cqaudiology.com.au and we will ring you back. If the date does not suit, our visiting clinics at Barcaldine and Tambo may line up better. Tell us you are coming from out west and we will work to make a single visit count.
CQ Audiology Visiting Sites
This page is general information, not personal medical advice. For guidance about your hearing, speak with a qualified professional.