Guntur General Hospital to conduct cochlear surgeries for free on kids

Guntur: Guntur General Hospital (GGH) will perform cochlear surgery free of cost on congenitally deaf children to make them hear and speak soon. This will be the second government hospital to start this surgery in the state after the KGH in Visakhapatnam.

The government has already given necessary permissions to perform these surgeries which will be performed a state-level team of doctors.. At present, this surgery, in which an electronic device would be fixed in ear, costs Rs 5 lakh to 7 lakh. KGH, which performed these surgeries for a while, now stopped them.

According to ENT professors, generally 3 per cent per cent of the children are deaf by birth in our country. In AP and Tamil Nadu, the percentage is 6 because of marriages between blood relations.

According to doctors in the GGH, cochlear surgeries would be performed under the NTR Vaidya Seva in public-private partnership mode. The GGH will provide necessary equipment and operation theatres and private doctors will perform the surgery. The GGH is waiting for necessary equipment to start this surgery. Surgery will be performed on children below 5 years of age to make them speak and screening is going on in the hospital to identify the beneficiaries.

In surgery, a small device is fixed in patient's ear, which sends impulses directly to his auditory nerve and carries sound signals to his brain. GGH superintendent Dr D S Raju Naidu said the government would purchase the necessary equipment at a cost of Rs 50 lakh for cochlear surgeries.

“The doctors will perform the surgery under the NTR Vaidya Seva Scheme. Post-surgery, the doctors will conduct speech therapy to the patients to make them speak. As all the patients in the state can be referred to the GGH for the surgeries, there will be heavy pressure on the hospital,” he said.

NRI Medical College ENT associate professor and the member of the state-level committee which is tasked with performing surgeries, Dr. Yarlagadda Subba Rayudu said, “Cochlear surgiers will be performed on children of upto 5 years of age. We will implant a device to make noise loud.

It would be better if surgeries are performed at the age of one year. There is need to conduct awareness camps about the cochlear surgery. In foreign countries, listening tests are carried out on children soon after the delivery.”

By V L Syam Sundar