ISLAMABAD: A United Kingdom-based team of doctors on Sunday conducted free cochlear implants on four children for the first time at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) and another two surgeries would be conducted on Monday (today).
The surgery, which costs around Rs3 million, has opened a gateway for starting such procedures in public-sector hospitals and reduce the cost of surgery in general. Earlier, it was announced by the Pims administration that the first Surgical Skills Laboratory (SSL) would soon be established and it would be called the Abdul Sattar Edhi Higher Surgical Skill Laboratory.
During the conference, panel discussions were conducted by renowned ear, nose and throat (ENT) surgeons from Pakistan, Malaysia and the UK and a surgical training course was also held for which the Edhi Foundation had provided 10 bodies that were brought from Karachi and sent back after completion of the course.
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.
UK-based doctors to perform two more surgeries today
Pims Director Prof Dr Khalid Masood, while talking to Dawn, said the procedure was performed on children who were deaf by birth.
“We had requested a UK-based team to hold surgeries in the hospital. The team examined over a dozen cases and decided to do cochlear implants on six children. We want to institutionalise it, which is why it has been decided to provide all possible facilities to the quarters concerned, however 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 Masood said.
“Blindness cuts us off from things, but deafness cuts us off from people. According to World Health Organisation (WHO), in Oct 2018, approximately 10 million people in Pakistan had a hearing impairment of some sort. In children, hearing is a prerequisite for 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.
“The first cochlear implant programme in Pakistan was started in Lahore in August 2000 with technical support from a team from Manchester. Since then, cochlear implant surgery is being done in various private and semiprivate hospitals in Pakistan. For the first time, cochlear implant surgeries are being done at the Children Hospital, Pims which is the largest public sector hospital in the capital city,” the Pims director said.
Head of the ENT department (Pims) Dr Altaf Hussain said that the two-day programme was funded by International Medical Relief Agency (IMRA), which is a UK-based charity organisation, founded by Dr Haroon Khan in 2001 and providing medical relief worldwide.
“Unfortunately in Pakistan, public sector hospitals have not introduced the facility due to which the private sector has captured the market and has been demanding around Rs3 million for a single procedure. Being a developing country, a majority of parents cannot afford expenses so we requested IMRA to do procedures here.
“It has also benefited us as we have got the facility and now we can also start implants provided that the funding would be provided either by the government or some charity organisation,” he said.
Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2022