One-in-10 disabled New Zealanders goes without aids

Almost one in 10 New Zealand adults has a sensory disability that cannot be corrected by special equipment.

Figures from the 2001 New Zealand Disability Survey show that an estimated 42 per cent of disabled adults - 272,800 - had sensory disabilities unable to be corrected by equipment such as glasses or hearing aids.

This is about 10 per cent of the total adult population.

About a third of all disabled children living in households had sight or hearing disabilities, or about 4 per cent of all children.

An estimated 33,600 New Zealanders were found to have both hearing and sight disabilities.

About 223,500 adults were deaf or had poor hearing that could not be fixed by a hearing aid.

Last year, about 18,300 children were deaf or had a hearing limitation that was not corrected.

Roughly 1600 of them used some type of hearing aid.

An estimated 81,500 adults were blind or had poor eyesight that could not be corrected by glasses or contact lenses.

About 7800 of those were completely blind.

The survey showed that an estimated 13,200 children were blind or had sight problems that could not be corrected.

Seventeen per cent of them had been diagnosed as blind by eye specialists.

- NZPA

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