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KEM hospital starts support club for congenital ear deformities

The idea behind the club, ‘hEAR FOR ALL’, is to help parents access counselling and treatment available for microtia-anotia.

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The KEM Hospital, Parel, became the first in the country on Monday to set up a dedicated club for children with congenital ear deformities.

The idea behind the club, ‘hEAR FOR ALL’, is to help parents access counselling and treatment available for microtia-anotia — a congenital deformity in which the outer ear is either very small and underdeveloped (microtia) or absent (anotia), muffling sounds and thereby impairing speech development.

About 5,000 children are born with this deformity every year in India but there is little understanding of it. Besides treatment burning a hole in the pocket — affected children require bone anchored hearing aids (BAHAs), each costing around Rs1.69 lakh, there are few ENT surgeons in the city equipped to handle such cases.

The KEM Hospital’s altruism has helped over 40 such children get diagnosed and seek treatment in the last year. Dr Hetal Marfatia-Patel, associate professor, ENT department of the hospital, operated on five kids and two were given soft bands to support the BAHA in that period.

“The club will offer support services like diagnosis, counselling, aural rehabilitation, and help access the device. Through this club, we want to create awareness of the treatment available and of the need for an early intervention,” said Dr Patel. 

Such poor is the awareness that even those from the medical fraternity know little of it. “The child of a cardiologist had developed this deformity. He knew of treatment options but was not aware that they can be done in India. After audiological testing, one can start the treatment as early as at the age of six months with the aid of a soft band. The device should be fixed between the age of six and eight once the bone thickness is adequate. The surgery takes 45 minutes to 1 hour,” Dr Patel said.

“The club is also going to start a registry because nobody has the state-level data on the deformity. Currently, some city NGOs are helping poor patients buy this device,” said Dr Neelam Sathe, associate professor, ENT department, KEM Hospital.

The KEM Hospital’s club was inaugurated by Bollywood actors Salman Khan and Himesh Reshammiya.

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