LAHORE, Sept 26: The fate of hundreds of children with impaired hearing hangs in balance since Children’s Hospital has stopped the process of surgeries for implanting cochlear devices to them in May 2010, Dawn has learnt.

These children studying at various state-run special education institutions expected to benefit from a vital scheme – Provision of Cochlear Implant to the Hearing Impaired Minor Students – following a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the special education department and Children’s Hospital so that they could lead a normal life.

Under the criteria, the surgery was effective for students below seven years with profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss, and was done to the children who are not mentally retarded and are studying at the state-run special education institutes.

Since the execution of the scheme was halted, seven students recommended for the implants have crossed the seven-year age limit for the surgery to be effective.

It was shocking to know for the parents of these students that their children could not be operated upon owing to ‘some reasons’ and they (students) might have to live with the impairment for the rest of their lives.

These students were short-listed for the surgery on the basis of the pathological and psychological analysis done at the hospital.

Children’s Hospital Medical Director Ahsan Waheed Rathore has cited lack of expertise, trained staff and internal politics among some doctors for the delay in reviving the scheme.

Talking to Dawn, he said the hospital had written to the health authorities to provide skilled doctors for the Pediatric ENT unit to conduct surgeries under the programme.

The institute held a meeting a month back with special education department senior officials and planned to restart the process of surgery but the only ENT surgeon, Associate Professor Dr Arif Tarrar, was not available as he was on vacation.

The Punjab government had launched the scheme in 2008-09 allocating Rs177.6 million keeping in view the costly treatment.Cochlear surgery is said to be even costlier than procedures like liver transplant and cardiac operations. As the estimated cost of the surgery is around Rs5 million, it is even unaffordable for the middle-class families.

As no cochlear-related surgery was done since May 2010, seven students out of the 18 recommended by education department during the last nine months crossed the upper age limit set for the implant.

According to documents, as the birth year of these schoolchildren was 2005, it was recommended their surgeries should be done before September 2012.

It is being apprehended given the present situation the students born in 2006 and 2007 may also be deprived of the opportunity to live normal life if their surgeries were delayed for another one or two years.

A source in the special education department said keeping in view the delay in earlier implants, the department did not recommend another 100 cases of the students born in 2003 and 2004 for the surgery. These students had been assessed initially by the department and their cases were to be sent to Children’s Hospital.

Besides these patients, special education department received recommendation about another batch of more than 100 children from 35 districts of Punjab two days ago needing such surgeries.

The nomination was sent by the district coordination officers (DCOs) and executive district officers (health), along with the relevant academic record and medical history of the students.

In the first phase, 106 such students were recommended by the administrations of 35 districts of Punjab to special education department for surgery under the scheme.

The department, accordingly, referred these cases to the Children’s Hospital where after medical scrutiny 46 of them were short-listed and 39 got implanted cochlear devices, enabling them to lead a normal life.

Under the scheme, the first cochlear-related surgery was performed at the Children’s Hospital in June 2009.

According to the laid down criteria under the scheme, The documents said under the MoU signed between the department and the hospital, the latter had pledged provision of full infrastructure for the surgery.

The department had accordingly arranged foreign training for senior surgeon Prof Dr Arif Tarrar and Paediatric Audiologist Dr Liaqat Ali in Germany.

The department had purchased 60 devices for implantation at the rate of Rs1350,000 each which were provided to the Children’s Hospital. Of them 21 are yet to be implanted.

A source said the warranty of the remaining devices might expire if the surgeries were delayed for further for six months or so.

He said the problem began when health department transferred Dr Liaqat Ali to the Services Hospital on the complaint of Children’s Hospital administration and consequently the surgeries came to a halt.

Similarly, the process of switching on the implanted devices has also stopped due to unavailability of trained audiologist.

The mapping process after switching on the implanted device was also a regular activity for recognition of different sounds at different frequencies and speech development afterwards, the source said.