[CapChapOhio] Fwd: Article on Columbus Speech and Hearing

[Todd Elzey]

Good morning, Capital Chapter family.  As many of you know, in addition to
my blindness, I have a moderate to severe hearing loss.  I don't hear
anything out of one ear and I wear a hearing aid in the other so that I can
hear enough to communicate. I have worn a hearing aid since the 2nd grade
at OSSB.  Hard to admit, but that was over 50 years ago.  Anyway, because
of the hearing aid, I rely heavily on audiology services. Since relocating
to Columbus, I have used Columbus Speech & Hearing for my hearing aid
services.  They have been the best audiologists I have ever had. But last
Friday, they suddenly closed their doors for good. Apparently, the staff
was told of the closure on Friday, and customers still have not been told
about the closure.  As you may recall, last year we had a presentation
about the SSP (Support Services Provider) program for the deaf-blind.
Columbus Speech & Hearing administered the SSP program through a contract
with the State.  With the closure of Columbus Speech & Hearing SSP clients
do not have access to the SSP program. In fact, it appears that the SSP
clients have simply been left hanging in limbo with no information about
what happened or what will happen to their services that the legislature
authorized money.  The Dispatch published an article about the closure.
Below is an email I sent to the reporter who wrote that article.  I am
encouraging everyone in the chapter to write this reporter and encourage
her to continue researching and reporting on the closure until Columbus
Speech and Hearing clients have answers about what happened and, more
importantly, until something is done to quickly reinstate SSP services. The
reporter's name is Samantha Hendrickson, and her email is
shendrickson at dispatch.com.  I hope all of you will share this information
with friends and family, particularly those impacted by the closure. I also
hope that all of you will take a few minutes out of your day to email Ms.
Hendrickson to ask the Dispatch to dig deeper into this issue.  Thanks, and
please let me know if you have any questions.

Todd Elzey

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Todd Elzey <toddelzey at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 12:06 PM
Subject: Article on Columbus Speech and Hearing
To: <shendrickson at dispatch.com>


Ms. Hendrickson:

Good morning!  I just read your article about the closure of Columbus
Speech and Hearing at
https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/healthcare/2026/02/16/columbus-speech-and-hearing-shutdown/88709331007/?tbref=hp\
This was a good starting point on the subject, but there is so much more
that should be reported on with this issue than was mentioned in the
article.  At the outset, I hope you will delve much deeper into the issue
than is done in your most recent article.

First, in the article, you posed the issue of whether clients have been
notified of the closure. I can say with certainty that, no, clients have
not received any type of notification from the organization of their
closure.  I have a moderate to severe hearing loss, in which I do not hear
anything at all in my left ear, and I wear a hearing aid in my right ear.
Since I relocated back to Columbus in 2022, I have used Columbus Speech and
Hearing as my Audiology provider. As of this morning, despite being a
client for over 4 years, I have not received any notification from the
organization of their closure. In fact, the only semi-official word I
received of the closure was via your article. Even their website still says
that Audiology, ASL, and the Support Services (SSP) programs are still open.

I have worn hearing aids for nearly 60 years. As such, I have worked with
audiologists much of my life. Over the last 4 years, the audiology
department at Columbus Speech and Hearing has been the best group of
audiologists I have ever worked with. In fact, this was the first time in
my life that I didn't have to stress about how audiology appointments would
go because they had awesome customer service and new what they were doing.
But despite that, the way the Board has handled this closing by not giving
advance notice to employees and not giving any notification to customers
who, like me, are going to be left in the lurch trying to replace these
superb services in an industry that is not known for its customer service,
has been absolutely disgusting and completely unprofessional.  Customers
deserved better.  Customers and the community also deserve an explanation
of why this was allowed to happen, rather than having the CEO hideout and
not face questions about the closure. After all, they are a non-profit that
took donors' money to run their services, not a private business. The
non-profit status should impose a higher standard of responsibility for the
Board to be upfront with both customers and staff about what led to the
closure and why customers weren't notified. As someone who has worked for
non-profits and government entities for a good portion of my career, I am
left to wonder what they are hiding with their silence on the closure.

This also involves taxpayer dollars. Columbus Speech and Hearing ran at
least one program, the Support Service Provider (SSP) for deaf-blind
individuals, that was at least partially funded by the State Legislature.
In fact, because of the severe need for the services provided by this
program, the Legislature increased the funding to Columbus Speech and
Hearing for this program in the last budget. So what will happen to this
money? And even more importantly, what will happen to Ohio's Deaf-Blind
population, who depend on SSP services to navigate their everyday lives.
>From what I can tell, right now they don't appear to have access to these
services, and that's simply unacceptable. So I particularly hope you will
report on this issue in-depth.

I hope you will continue to report on this story until the full story comes
out about why and how Columbus Speech and Hearing has left thousands of
people in the lurch with their closure, no notification of the closure, and
no assistance in locating alternative services.  I, for one, would call on
the CEO and the Board to hold a public forum where they would have to
explain to the public what happened and why the closure was handled so
poorly and so abruptly.

Thank you, and please let me know if you have any questions.

Todd Elzey
611 Blenheim Rd.
Columbus, OH  43214
315-879-1746
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