Hearing Impaired Girl Child Project completes 3 years

Jubilee Hills: IPL Sunrisers team members, Rashid Khan, Carlos Brathwaite, Sandeep Sharma, Siddarth Kaul and Tom Moody joined the celebrations of over 70 hearing impaired girls benefitting from the ‘Hearing Impaired Girl Child Project’ (HIGCP). The project is initiated by Apollo Hospital and Sahi three years ago in 2015. 

If the hearing impairment is left untreated in the first 3-5 years of life these children end up with hearing and speech disorders throughout their lifetime. As per World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates approximately 63 million people suffer from significant hearing impairment every year in India. Four babies in every 1,000 born suffer from severe to profound hearing loss in India.  

HIGCP has been helping hearing impaired girls under the age of 15 by providing the State of the art cochlear implant and performing the surgery free of cost, HIGCP bears the cost of Rs 8 lakh per child. Dr E C Vinay Kumar Head Department of ENT at Apollo Health City and Secretary said that that a hearing-impaired girl is at a greater risk of facing abuse both physically and mentally. He added that historically too, the need of a female child is often neglected by parents and the prohibitive cost of treatment only inhibits them, they instead prefer to divert their limited resources to address their son’s aspiration.

Cochlear Implant Surgery will empower a hearing-impaired girl child, help her evolve into a respectable citizen, besides enabling her to achieve her dreams and ambitions. She will be able to live life on her own terms said Dr Rambabu,ENT Surgeon at Apollo Health city and Director Medical Service of Sahi.