Public hospital first restores hearing
AFTER being deaf for the past 10 years, a 36-year-old patient now has hope of regaining her hearing after a team of specialists performed the first ever cochlear implant procedure at Ngwelezana Tertiary Hospital on Monday.
The team is part of the KZN Auditory Implant Program (KZNAIP) which was formed a few years ago by a multidisciplinary team in the province.
The first for the hospital was performed by specialist ENT, Dr Lungi Setoaba and her team.
According to reports, the patient lost hearing in both ears past after being on MDR TB treatment.
“The ototoxicity drugs caused damage and left her with profound sensory-neural hearing loss in both ears. This meant that she went from hearing everything in the world to total silence.
“She was fitted with superpower hearing aids in both ears, but they were only helpful for stimulation of the brain and hearing environmental sounds,” said hospital public relations officer SE Buthelezi.
According to leading doctor Dr Lungi Setoaba, to perform the procedure, cochlear implant were surgically implanted inside the patient’s existing cochlea.
“Although the implants does not restore a person’s hearing back to normal it offers greater access to sound and speech than other hearing devices.
“The patient will be required to see the audiologist frequently and attend rehabilitation programmes with are certified by speech therapist’ explained Dr Setoaba.
Setoaba also added that the procedure went well, working with a team of other doctors including chief audiologist Lindokuhle Zitha, medical officer Dr Koma and other medical practitioners.
The recipient still needs a sound processor to be connected and then programmed by the audiologist once the surgical site has healed.
This procedure was the second for a KZN public hospital following the first case which was done at Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital in November last year.
According to reports, two more patients are scheduled for Ngwelezane Tertiary Hospital soon.