A Lake Macquarie woman says a trip to the family GP with her sick child led to an invention that she hopes will modernise mouth examinations around the world.
Jennifer Holland from Redhead has created an illuminated tongue depressor, that she has called Throat Scope.
She used a $50,000 Queensland Government grant, as well as a stint on a reality television show, to get her project off the ground.
Ms Holland said the idea came to her in 2009.
“I took my 15-month-old child to the doctors,” she said.
“The doctor was trying to restrain my child, I was helping him, he was using a wooden tongue depressor in one hand and a hand-held torch in the other, and he was trying to open his mouth.
“That was my light bulb moment.
“So I started looking at different designs and realised we could use simple LEDs to shine through plastic that would light up inside the mouth.”
Ms Holland said the first shipment arrived this month, after six years of an entrepreneurial rollercoaster ride.
“One minute things are going really well, and then the next minute you’ve hit a road block and you have to try and find a way through,” she said.
“But, we’re here now, and wanting to see this device in every hospital, and doctors surgery, and every home – that’s my goal.
“I want to make life easier for mums and dads.
“They can use it for all sorts of things – checking for a sore throat, checking for an ulcer, helping you apply ulcer cream, pulling something out of your child’s mouth, like playdough, which I do a lot.”
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