The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : National initiative on deafness control on the cards

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Nov 08, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

National initiative on deafness control on the cards

By Our Staff Reporter

MADURAI, NOV. 7. The Union Health Ministry is likely to launch a national programme on early detection of deafness among children soon, the President of the Association of Otolaryngologists of India (AOI), T. V. Krishna Rao, said on Saturday.

The project would be on the lines of the blindness control and prevention programme. The Union Health Minister, R. Anbumani, was agreeable to the idea of a deafness control programme at the national level, he said delivering the inaugural address at the 8th State ENT conference here.

Alarming trend

Citing the World Health Organisation report on deafness, he said there were an estimated 250 million deaf people in the world of whom 110 million were in the South East Asian countries. Every day, about 100 deaf people were added to the population. It was essential that the country have a programme to detect and diagnose deafness at an early stage. "Detection of hearing problems is a vital ingredient but unfortunately in India hearing ability is not tested immediately after birth, whereas in developed countries it is done within days."

Dr. Rao also said the postgraduate ENT education differed from State to State, and among medical colleges, and hence there was a need to have a uniform syllabus. He called for sensitising patients to preventable cancers.

Noise pollution

The District Collector, D. Raajendiran, said noise pollution affected people in many ways, though the impact was not felt immediately. He highlighted the need to prevent deafness among school children.

P. K. Ponnuswamy, Vice-Chancellor, Madurai Kamaraj University, who released a souvenir, said hospitalisation in India had become very costly. The private health sector was unregulated and not guided by national goals. Medicines should be affordable, he said.

High costs

The Dean of Government Rajaji Hospital, Kalavathy Ponniraivan, said advancements in medicine were amazing but "expensive surgery must be made available in the Government set up also" as it benefited a large population.

She said ways and means of bringing down the surgery and treatment costs must be found out to make them affordable for the poor.

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