More than 500 Cuban children have benefited in Cuba with a cochlear implant in the more than two decades that the national program focused on the treatment of severe-profound deafness has been created, an element to take into account on the occasion of the International Day of this procedure.
This mechanism allows him to listen to those who were born deaf or with severe hearing impairments, a costly procedure capable of bringing back sounds, especially children. Hence the importance of an achievement of this magnitude in the Cuban health system.
The cochlear implant is a high-tech device, very expensive with an estimated average price, without placement, between 18 thousand and 20 thousand euros. With an added cost of surgery valued in any other country in the world between 40 thousand and 60 thousand dollars.
However, this procedure in Cuba is free, from the device to the process that involves the study, implantation and rehabilitation that can span several years. But for Cuba it is a priority, because of what it means for children with hearing disabilities.
To understand how the miracle of making sounds sprout is possible, we must start from the fact that this device replaces the function of the inner ear, therefore, it is placed inside the ear to perform its function. It is used in cases of severe to profound hearing loss that does not have benefits with conventional prostheses.
Although any person with hearing impairment or deafness who does not have malformations of the inner ear can be a candidate for this procedure, the child population is prioritized, especially before three years of age, although they can be operated on until six and seven years of age, depending on the underlying pathologies or if they have previously used hearing aids.
In the case of those children who have used prostheses and lost the remaining hearing they had, they are also candidates for this procedure.
It is worth clarifying that the only emergency used in this program applies to healthy children suffering from Meningo bacterial encephalitis, who can lose their hearing abruptly due to the action of toxins. For this reason, it is an established protocol that these cases before hospital discharge undergo a hearing test to find out if this function was affected.
When a child is implanted, it is because there is no other resourse, in terms of enabling his deafness. In Cuba, when an infant requires this procedure, the best prostheses are purchased from the two leading companies of the device worldwide, because it is a prioritized program.
When we talk about one of the most expensive works, we are also referring to one of the most impressive in Cuban Public Health, because it is enough to know those who have benefited from a cochlear implant to realize how they experience the sensation of hearing their own voice and that of their loved ones thanks to the Cochlear Implant Program that like a miracle makes the wonder of sounds sprout.
By: Maylín Betancourt Verdecia/ Translated by Radio Angulo
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