Key Points
Chandigarh-based Omisha Gupta (6) was over two years old when her parents finally realised that she was born with total hearing impairment..
Doctors at the institute conducted advanced tests, trying out hearing aids for a month, a standard procedure, before Dr Naresh K Panda, HoD, Otolaryngology (ENT), operated upon the child, performing a bilateral cochlear implant (CI) surgery..
Dr Panda, instrumental in starting CI surgery in PGI 20 years back, while recalling his journey, says, Earlier, when patients with hearing disability would come to us for treatment, Id get frustrated as we could only prescribe hearing aids..
According to Dr Panda, as per the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Deafness (NPPCD), every newborn at the PGI is screened for hearing disability under the Universal Neonatal Hearing Screening Programme; it is also offered by all major hospitals across India..
The possibility of hearing loss is more in high-risk categories, which include pre-mature and low-birth babies, those who had severe jaundice after birth, new-borns who experienced a lack of oxygen to the brain before or shortly after birth and in case of a family history of deafness, adds Dr Panda..
