On August 14, doctors at JJ Hospital successfully performed a cochlear implant surgery on Shukla, making him the first patient to undergo the surgery at a governmental hospital in the state.

The civic-run KEM Hospital was the first public hospital in the city to perform a cochlear implant surgery in February 2007 and has performed over six such surgeries since then.

Shukla was born with normal hearing but became deaf after a bout of meningitis when he was five months old. Since he lost his ability to hear as an infant, Shukla has not learnt to talk.

“We took him to many doctors and when he was one got him a hearing aid, but he did not respond,” said father Rohit, who works as a sales representative in Nerul.

Rohit and wife Sunita were then referred to Dr Sandra Desa Souza, a pioneer in Cochlear Implants in the city and head of ENT (Ear, Nose, Throat) at Jaslok Hospital.

She guided Shukla’s surgery which was performed by JJ’s ENT surgeon Dr Mohan Jagade and Jaslok’s ENT surgeon Dr Dillon D’souza.

An implant receiver was fitted in Shukla’s skull, behind his ear.

Four weeks later, a speech processor will be strapped on to his body to pick up sounds and transmit them to the receiver.

The implant will be switched on after the surgical wound has healed.

Dr Desa Souza said Shukla’s case was “complicated” because his cochlear was rotated and the surgery had to be performed with the tests with the help of medical images of his skull.

Not only was Shukla the first to undergo a cochlear implant surgery at a government hospital in the city, he was also the first one to get an advanced implant called the Advanced Bionic Highres 90K.

The surgeries at KEM have been done using a traditional nu cleus Implant.

The advanced implant boasts of 120 channels for discriminating sounds and speeches and has faster speech production compared to the traditional implant.

The entire cost of the surgery — approximately Rs 6.10 lakh — was covered under the Employees’ State Insurance Scheme of India, which provides cover for workers in the organised sector.

Dr Desa Souza said Shukla will be able to hear sounds immediately but will be able to recognise them only with speech therapy. “He has to learn words and will start babbling and speaking soon,” she said.

Shukla’s parents couldn’t be more happy. “We have been running around for three years to get our son’s hearing back. I am waiting to hear his first word,” said Rohit.

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