6 children receive cochlear implants at PIMS

Islamabad:Six deserving children received Cochlear Implants at the Children Hospital, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) by a United Kingdom-based Charity organisation, International Medical Relief Agency (IMRA). The procedure was conducted in collaboration with Islamabad Courses of ENT (ICE), says a press release.

A UK-based doctor, Dr Noweed Ahmed from James's Cook University hospital, performed six cochlear implant surgeries in two days as a continuation of the programme started last year in October, 2022 in which six children got cochlear implants as well.

The surgery, which costs around Rs3.5 million, has opened a gateway for starting such procedures in public-sector hospitals and reducing the cost of surgery in general.

Executive Director, PIMS Prof Dr Imran Sikandar said the procedures were performed on children who were deaf by birth. “I'm glad that our hospital is now becoming the hub for the cochlear implants as the team examined over two dozen cases and decided to do cochlear implants on six poor deserving children”, he said adding that they wanted to institutionalise it, for which they decided to provide all possible facilities to the quarters concerned.

“But we have been facing severe funding problems and will contact the government to provide resources so that the facility would be provided to the most deserving children,” Dr Sikandar said. The program is also appreciated by Prof Dr Amjad Chaudhary, principal FMC and Head of the Paediatric Surgery department, PIMS.

According to World Health Organization (WHO), in Oct 2018, approximately 10 million people in Pakistan had a hearing impairment of some sort. In children, hearing is a prerequisite for the development of speech. So children who are deaf by birth or have trouble hearing due to some disease before development of speech, if not treated on time, can never develop adequate speech abilities which along with deafness is a lifelong disability,” he said.

Head of the ENT department (PIMS) Prof. Dr Altaf Hussain said, "The two-day program was funded by the International Medical Relief Agency (IMRA), which is a UK-based charity organisation founded by Dr Haroon Khan in 2001 and providing medical relief worldwide.

He added that blindness cuts us off from things, but deafness cuts us off from people. A cochlear implant is a small electronic device that electrically stimulates the cochlear nerve (nerve for hearing). The implant has external and internal parts. The external part sits behind the ear and picks up sounds with a microphone. It then processes the sound and transmits it to the internal part of the implant."

"Earlier this year a surgical training course was conducted by the team of ICE in PIMS, for which the cadaveric head specimens were arranged from USA”, Prof. Hussain said.