RUMAILAH Hospital has conducted cochlear implant surgeries, for five Palestinian children who were born deaf.
According to Dr Amr Elhakeem, head of neck surgery section, and consultant Dr Abdul Salam al-Qahtani, who did the sugeries, the children are being supported by HH Sheikha Mozah Nasser al-Misnad for their treatment and rehabilitation as well as training of support staff who will look after them.

One of the children being assessed by a physician

“We received a number of CT-scan and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) results and audiology tests of children with hearing impairment from Palestine and based on the causes of their deafness, which is congenital, we decided to invite them over for the surgery and rehabilitation,” the doctors said.
After the surgery over a period of  one week, the children are being exposed to sounds for the first time through a device called ‘speed processor’ in order to follow up on the
surgery.
Cochlear implant (CI) is a small electronic device that is surgically implanted in the inner ear and activated by another device worn outside the ear.
According to the doctors, CI allows an individual who have severe or profound hearing loss to receive sounds that decrease his disabilities resulting from hearing impairment.
“After the surgery, the children have begun rehabilitation training under speech therapists who will teach them learning process including talking and pronouncing alphabets and other sounds. To ensure that we achieve our aim, we will also train some people including family members on rehabilitating the children,” they said.
Dr al-Qahtani stressed that talking early depended on the intelligent quotient of the children, saying that it was very important for family members to be involved in rehabilitation process.
The children are in the age group of three to four years.
Dr Elhakeem said the CI programme was initiated by the hospital’s audiology department about two years ago.
So far, according to him, more than 30 children have been operated upon while up to 25 from Bahrain, India, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco and Sudan are on the waiting list for the surgery.
“Our objective is to find and discover cases early in order to start to manage the children as soon as possible as this will assist in quick rehabilitation process because not all affected children require CI, some only need hearing aid and the surgery can be done on any child from age one,” he added.
The doctor said that the hearing aid amplifies the sound while the CI stimulates the nerve by replacing the damaged or missing hair cells with electrodes.
“The electrodes provide electrical stimulation directly to the auditory nerve, which in turn relays the signal to the brain that perceives the stimulus as sensation of hearing,” he said.
To speed up operation time, which usually lasts over two hours, Dr al-Qahtani said that the department is planning to acquire a QR1.5mn advanced surgical navigator with microscope that will not only speed up the process of surgery but also provide clear picture of the inner ear to the surgeon during operation.
Maqsood Ibrahim Adam, assistant executive director, said an endowment fund has been put together by the hospital to assist children with Qatar resident visas to have the CI surgery free, which he said could cost them from between QR90,000 – QR150,000.