Excelsior Correspondent
KATRA, May 11: Over last several years, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi (SMVD) Shrine Board has been making positive strides for elimination of deafness amongst young children of the region, by way of sponsoring cochlear implant surgeries at SMVD Narayana Super-Specialty Hospital (SMVDNSH), Kakryal. In furtherance of these initiatives, three more deaf children received gift of hearing through these sponsored cochlear surgeries.
The surgeries in reference have helped the SMVDNSH to acquire a unique clinical accomplishment of being first hospital in the entire region for simultaneous undertaking of 3 bilateral (both ears) cochlear implant surgeries. Notably, one of the beneficiary children was merely of 16 months of age, posing vis-a-vis higher surgery-related challenges.
The beneficiary families, hailing from Jammu and Kashmir, were unequivocally appreciative of the philanthropic support provided by Anshul Garg, CEO Shrine Board in transforming lives of their broods. Additionally, the beneficiary families expressed their gratefulness to Dr M M Mathavan (Facility Director) and Dr Gopal Sharma (Chief Administrative Officer) for their tireless efforts, relentless support and co-ordination resulting into performance of surgeries within short span after the families approached for financial support.
Dr Rohan Gupta, ENT Consultant and Cochlear Implant Surgeon shared the research-based input of early age being critical to drive maximum benefit from a Cochlear Implant Surgery. He also apprised that a bilateral Surgery enables the beneficiary to enjoy even better outcome in the shape of better sound perceptions, directionality, localization and easier listening in noisy environments; hence reducing cognitive load on brain. Dr Rohan updated that in the last 6 months as many as 9 Bilateral Surgeries have been performed at SMVDNSH with majority of the beneficiaries being around 2 years of age.
He also mentioned that for children having ‘severe’ to ‘profound’ hearing loss, the hearing aids do not offer much promise and thus a Cochlear Implantation is the only promising solution.
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