By Hina Kiyani
ISLAMABAD: Six deserving candidates received cochlear implants at the Children Hospital, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS). The procedure was conducted by a United Kingdom-based Charity organisation, International Medical Relief Agency (IMRA) in collaboration with Islamabad Courses of ENT (ICE).
A UK-based doctor, Dr Noweed Ahmed from James’s Cook University hospital, performed implant surgeries in two days as a continuation of the program started last year in October, 2022 in which six children got cochlear implants as well.
The surgery, which costs around Rs 3.5 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 procedure was performed on children who were deaf by birth. “I am 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, “We want to institutionalize it, which is why it has been decided to provide all possible facilities to the quarters concerned 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 the Paediatric Surgery department, PIMS.
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 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 programme 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. He said that 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, he added. Dr Hussain said that 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. He said as many as 130 participants got a chance for hands on dissection and learned new surgical techniques from the renowned experts of ENT fraternity who joined from all over the Pakistan, Malaysia and the UK. Dr Altaf Hussain said along with these workshops, ENT master class by UK based ENT consultants, was held for the first time in Islamabad, in which 15 renowned ENT specialists from UK Germany and Malaysia joined and gave the insights on the newer approach in the field of ENT. He said, “Being a third-world country with limited resources, the majority of parents can not afford expenses, so we requested IMRA to do these procedures here.” He said, “Dr Haroon Khan, Chairman of IMRA, overwhelmingly accepted and assured us to visit PIMS twice a year for such surgeries.” “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, charity organisation, or people who are willing to donate for a good cause,” Dr Hussain added.
