People with bad enough hearing loss that they need hearing aids, can develop tinnitus as a result of the hearing loss. Wearing hearing aids can reduce the frequency of the tinnitus, and the volume of the tinnitus. In some cases it can eliminate it completely for awhile, even when the person takes the hearing aids out.
I've had progressive nerve damage in my ears since birth. I've had tinnitus since I was a kid; I thought it was radio waves and thought it was a pretty cool phenomenon that I never mentioned to anyone. I didn't really understand what it was til it started coming regularly, when I was in my 40s. That was also when my nerve damage kicked itself up another notch and my hearing got a little worse.
I'm supposed to wear hearing aids and have a pair, but I hate them and never wear them. I'm so used to NOT hearing properly, that I find the world is just way too loud for me with them in my ears. However, when I was wearing them, I noticed the tinnitus had stopped completely. I wore them almost every day, for most of the day, for a couple of months. When I started skipping days, I still didn't have the tinnitus anymore. I would sometimes skip wearing them for almost two weeks before the ringing would return.
Now, there's usually some ringing in my ears but I'm just so used to it I don't pay it any attention. I can't hear what you're saying anyway so it's not like it's "in the way" of external sound
Moral of the story:
Hearing aids for people who have nerve damage in their ears AND tinnitus, can reduce and even eliminate tinnitus, temporarily. Long-term if you wear the aids religiously. It's not a cure. You still have tinnitus. But you no longer have "episodes" of it.