| Danial Norjidi in Sydney, Australia |
THERE is potential for Cochlear Limited, a global leader in hearing-implant devices, to explore opportunities and expand their work in Brunei Darussalam.
Tze Mau Ng, the General Manager of Asia Growth Markets for Cochlear, shared this in an interview with the Bulletin during a visit by Asean media to Cochlear Limited’s headquarters at the Macquarie University campus in Sydney.
Cochlear researches, develops and manufactures systems to restore hearing for people who cannot be helped by hearing aid. This includes cochlear implants, sound processors, remote assistants and programming software. Established in 1981, Cochlear’s technologies have helped over 450,000 people.
In a presentation, Tze Mau said that 72,000 people across the Asia-Pacific region have been helped with Cochlear’s technology, with approximately 4,000 in Asean.
During an interview with the Bulletin, Tze Mau shared, “As of today, how we are supporting Brunei is through our Malaysia team. So our distributor partner and business partner in Malaysia do travel to Brunei whenever there is a surgery. That’s mainly on a supportive kind of work that we are doing for Brunei.
“Of course, we can share and talk about it with whoever the professional is in Brunei and how do we expand and work with him and other groups to expand and other things. But right now it’s a very supportive kind of function.
“There is an opportunity for us to help and at the same time I think countries today, it’s just, how fast we can grow and making sure that the infrastructure is able to support the recipients,” he said, adding that a key part is building infrastructure and capability.
The importance of having a whole support system and infrastructure in place was also highlighted in his presentation, where he explained that this is because once a patient has been implanted, they need life-long support. This is to ensure that patients continue to hear once they get implanted.
Asked on the potential for Cochlear to invest in Brunei, he said, “Certainly. Definitely if there’s an opportunity for us to work with a partner as well as together with the health institutions then I think there are things that we are definitely interested to do there.”
Adding on, Tze Mau shared, “At the end of the day, as I said, it’s really the whole partnership, the whole collaboration. The Bruneian Government, I know it provides a very established healthcare system for their people, so I think this is an area we could engage and talk about the opportunity how we can do more.”