Ben Stabler, of the Barbados Speech and Hearing Centre, said what was more important was that a hearing test should be part of the medical examination for new employees. This was necessary to protect management because the onus would be on management should the employee lose his hearing on the job.

Draft laws require decibel levels to be kept "below a level likely to be injurious or hazardous working therein" and where it was not possible to reduce the noise level, workers must be adequately protected. However, the question will arise whether that person already had "bad hearing" when he took up the job.

The way to resolve that was to do a "baseline" test which is a test to establish the quality of hearing before the worker takes up the job. Then if there is a problem, new test results can be compared to the baseline data.

Those people in high risk groups were: musicians, sound engineers, sugar factory workers, manufacturing industries especially those with machinery working metal on metal, construction industry, jackhammer operators, tractor drivers, pile driver operators, pneumatic drill operators, DJs and airport workers. 

Stabler said he had tested a wide cross-section of workers in these areas during his 20-year practice and the hearing of some was damaged but they might not be aware.

Sound is measured at a variety of frequencies and as the hearing deteriorates, the damaged ear might not hear high frequencies or low frequencies. As the damage gradually continues, the person will go deaf to high frequency consonants like "s", "f", "c" and the speaker will sound as though he is mumbling.

"I see results of noise and it is not recoverable. It can be compensate with a hearing aid but sometimes not even a hearing aid helps," he said.

What is worse is that hearing normal degrades with age, but the young person who suffers even small amounts of hearing loss is actually getting a head start on the normal person and will become deaf or hard-of-hearing sooner.