The ENT department of Apollo Hospital conducted a total of 18 cochlear operations on stone deaf children on Friday. The operations which were funded by the Rajiv Arogyasri programme of the government, was done successfully on children between the age group 2 to 9 years who for the first time ever will be able to hear and talk.

The children who will be discharged from hospital in couple of days were implanted a device into their ears so as to enable them to listen properly. The cochlear implantations which begun in the year 1996 took around 12 years till January 2008 to get 100 cases done. The head of the ENT team Dr E C Vinay Kumar said, “However the next 100 cases were done in just 10 months time. There is no record anywhere 18 such surgeries being performed on a single day. It gives me immense joy in being instrumental in assisting affected children get over their disability.”

The implant device is imported from Australia and the total operation costs around Rs 5 lakhs. Patients are henceforth also given training in linguistic abilities so as to familiarize them with the sounds they are hearing for the first time. The Doctor said that though India faces a backlog of 1.5 million patients, a total of 20 centres providing the service are not enough as they perform less than 2,500 surgeries in a given year. He also added that lack of awareness among people also aggravates the situation as timely help is not resorted for.