MSC takes preventative hearing approach towards maintaining CIVMAR readiness and overall health

Photo By LaShawn Sykes | On Dec. 10, fifty-six CIVMARS assigned to two of MSC’s fleet replenishment oilers on Naval Station Norfolk received the first wave of pier side hearing tests from the Naval Medical Center Portsmouth’s Mobile Hearing Conservation and Testing Audiogram van. While the audiogram van typically can see only 50 patients in an eight-hour workday, a fraction of what Naval Medical Center Portsmouth in Virginia can see in a day, the audiogram van successfully tested 42 crew members of USNS Joshua Humphreys (T-A0 188) and 14 crew members of USNS Kanawha (T-A0 196).  

NORFOLK, VIRGINIA, UNITED STATES

01.04.2021

Story by LaShawn Sykes 

USN Military Sealift Command

Did you know that hearing loss left untreated can impact your social and emotional well-being? Some studies today contribute hearing loss to fatigue and depression, social isolation, difficulty communicating with others, and an inability to perform routine household and work-related activities.
Out of the five basic human senses, hearing is a critical one because it connects you to the world around you, enabling you to communicate and engage with others in a way that helps shape your quality of life. “Your ability to hear is vital to individual and unit performance and to overall mission success,” as maintained by the Department of Defense Hearing Center of Excellence.
While there are many different types of hearing losses, noise induced hearing loss is the one most contributed to long term exposure to loud noises. “Noise-induced hearing loss limits your ability to hear high frequency sounds and understand speech, which seriously impairs your ability to communicate. Hearing aids may help, but they do not restore your hearing to normal,” as claimed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Recognizing that the number one risk factor faced by civil service mariners is their exposure to loud noises from jet engines to engineer rooms on Navy ships, with noise induced hearing loss being the invisible injury impacting CIVMARS’ readiness and overall health, Military Sealift Command is taking preventative steps to ensure its mariners receive annual hearing examinations to not only discover hearing loss but uncover any physical or medical issues mariners are facing due to hearing loss.
Last month, fifty-six CIVMARS assigned to two of MSC’s fleet replenishment oilers on Naval Station Norfolk received the first wave of pier side hearing tests from the Naval Medical Center Portsmouth’s Mobile Hearing Conservation and Testing Audiogram van. While the audiogram van typically can see only 50 patients in an eight-hour workday, a fraction of what Naval Medical Center Portsmouth in Virginia can see in a day, the audiogram van successfully tested 42 crew members of USNS Joshua Humphreys (T-A0 188) and 14 crew members of USNS Kanawha (T-A0 196).
Annual hearing tests are necessary because CIVMARS work in very arduous environments said LCDR Nathan A. Moss, MSC’s Occupational and Environmental Medicine Physician Medical Officer. “Mariners who work in loud noise work areas receive the necessary hearing capability to perform their duties and are properly fitted with hearing protection devices that protect against hearing loss.”
The big challenge is how to protect and conserve hearing so that mariners are able to effectively and continually communicate in hazardous noise work areas. In order to maintain hearing readiness, each mariner that is exposed to hazardous noise work areas are entered into the Navy’s Hearing Conservation Program and are required to have an annual hearing test. While the medical departments aboard Navy ships are responsible for the provision of hearing tests, it is the command’s safety officer who is responsible for ensuring that noise exposed CIVMARS report for annual and required follow-up hearing tests, to include diagnostic audiology evaluations.
Ensuring that CIVMARS are kept up to date on the latest and greatest preventive medicine programs protecting against hearing loss is imperative said Monte Koschalk, USNS Kanawha’s Medical Services Officer. “What’s good about the use of an audiogram van as a preventative hearing measure is it allows CIVMARS to see their results immediately, good or bad. Audiograms also act as a check to see how well our mariners are complying with wearing hearing protection in those hazardous noise work areas on the ship that have been identified as loud noise areas.” MSC mariners are also cautioned to wear hearing protection around loud noise areas outside of work, more specifically, while using power tools such as leaf blowers, lawnmowers, and table saws.
The audiogram van serves as a conduit between MSC mariners and their participation in the Navy’s Hearing Conservation Program, which is a specific medical surveillance program used to conserve and protect against hearing loss said Dr. Moss.
Future audiogram van visits to NAVSTA to support other MSC ships will be regularly scheduled as needed.
CIVMARS who are unable to visit the audiogram van should request their Occupational and Environmental Medicine Physician Medical Officer set up their next annual hearing test at Swells Point Branch Clinic on NAVSTA.
Military Sealift Command’s civil service mariners are the largest segment of the Navy’s global workforce. CIVMARS are federal employees, employed by the Navy to serve onboard MSC naval auxiliaries and hybrid manned warships worldwide. MSC exits to support the joint warfighter across the full spectrum of military operations, providing on-time logistics, strategic lift, as well as specialized missions anywhere in the world, in both contested and uncontested environments.

• Date Taken: 01.04.2021
• Date Posted: 01.05.2021 10:43
• Story ID: 386444
• Location: NORFOLK, VIRGINIA, US