PLEASANT POINT – Two doctors whose specialty is audiology decided they wanted to give back to the community and are lending their expertise to a new program that allows for hearing testing on reservations.

The first reservation to have the new program is Pleasant Point.

Drs. James Dean and Gary Schwartzberg, who have practices in Rockport and Waterville, were at the Pleasant Point Health Fair held at the Youth and Recreation Center on Friday.

“They will do the screening here today, but our nursing staff is trained to do the audiology,” Sandi Yarmal, executive director of the Pleasant Point Health Center, said Friday. “And the doctors have come and trained our folks in how to do it.”

Yarmal said beginning this school year the health center would do hearing screening on all youngsters at the Beatrice Rafferty Elementary School at Pleasant Point. She said they even planned to test the incoming kindergarten class.

The doctors talked about their commitment.

“Dr. Schwartzberg and I have a real appreciation for Maine and for the communities in which we’ve been working,” Dean said. “So we were looking for a project that we could participate in to try and give back.”

They contacted the state’s Office of Minority Health and came up with the idea of making audiology available for reservations. The state purchased the equipment and the doctors provided the expertise to train the health center’s staff, the doctors said.

“This is our first project,” Dean said.

Schwartzberg said they would assess hearing loss while at the health fair and identify any children and adults with signs of hearing loss. They did turn up some.

Viola Frances, who lives at Pleasant Point, said Friday she believed she had suffered some hearing loss, but was unsure. The test verified her suspicion. “So this was a good thing,” she said of the test.

For six years the Pleasant Point Health Center has been helping people on the reservation stay healthy through information it provides at its annual health fairs.

People also were picking up information and lining up to be screened for diabetes.

First they filled out a form. After that they were weighed and measured for height. Then it was time for the blood pressure test. After that it was a prick of a finger and the test for diabetes. For that, participants received a T-shirt with a colorful design on it.

Diabetes is a problem among the Indian nations and Yarmal said they were seeing more cases at the health center. “It can be an increase in people with diabetes, but my sense is because there is more information out there and people are becoming more aware they are wanting to be tested for diabetes. So I think the screening process has been hugely beneficial in getting people earlier,” she said.

The youngest person on the reservation to have the disease is 6, the oldest is in the mid-80s, Yarmal said.

During the health fair there also was information on nutrition, heart disease and cancer, and a Pleasant Point medical provider administering fluoride treatments.

Cancer Education Network for Native American Families and Survivors was handing out information. Rae Hinton, a Passamaquoddy who lives in New York and a spokeswoman for the group, said, “We have people all over that are consultants and affiliates. They go to their various tribes and work within their communities on cancer education.”

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