ISLAMABAD: Six deserving candidates received cochlear implants from a United Kingdom-based charity organisation - International Medical Relief Agency (IMRA) - at the Children Hospital of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims).

The procedure was conducted in collaboration with Islamabad Courses of ENT (ICE).

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 during which six children got cochlear implants as well.

Pims spokesperson Dr Mubashir Daha said the surgery, which costs around Rs3.5 million, had opened a gateway for starting such procedures in public-sector hospitals and reducing the cost of surgery in general.

Pims Executive Director Prof Dr Imran Sikander said the procedure was performed on children who were deaf by birth.

“I’m glad that our hospital is now becoming the hub for 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 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 Sikander said.

The programme has also been appreciated by Federal Medical College principal and head of the Paediatric Surgery Department, Pims, Prof Dr Amjad Chaudhary.

According to the 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,” Dr Chaudhary said.

Head of the Pims ENT Department 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.

“Blindness cuts us off from things, but deafness cuts us off from people,” he added.

He said a cochlear implant was a small electronic device that electrically stimulated 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,” Dr Hussain said.

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 the US. 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 Pakistan, Malaysia and the UK.

Along with these workshops, ENT master class by UK-based consultants, was held for the first time in Islamabad, in which 15 renowned ENT specialists from the United Kingdom, Germany and Malaysia gave insights on the newer approach in the field of ENT.

“Unfortunately in Pakistan, public-sector hospitals due to limited resources and funds have not introduced this facility due to which the private sector has captured the market and has been demanding more than Rs3 million for a single procedure. Being a third-world country with limited resources and poverty, the majority of parents cannot afford the expense, so we requested IMRA to carry out these procedures here,” Dr Daha said.

“IMRA Chairman Dr Haroon Khan overwhelmingly accepted and assured us that he would visit Pims twice a year for such surgeries,” he said.

“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 organisations or people willing to donate for a good cause,” Dr Daha added.

Published in Dawn, December 21st, 2023