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KOCHI: The Child Care Centre in Kochi has launched a scheme, ‘Swaram’, aimed at universal newborn screening to detect and provide medical aid to newborns with hearing disabilities. Union Minister of Food and Civil Supplies, K V Thomas who inaugurated the project on Sunday at the Ernakulam General Hospital hailed the scheme as a new phase in medical care.Unless, the hearing disability in a child is detected, and the treatment is started, within the first six months of birth, it becomes difficult to recover the child’s speech completely. Owing to this reason, in many countries newborns are not discharged from the hospital without passing these tests. However, in India, no city offers such tests to the newborns. So far, the best treatment involves using hearing aids within the first six months. The detection is also aimed at reducing the dependence on expensive medical treatments like cochlear implants.Minister K Babu was also present at the inauguration. He reiterated that the central government will provide an amount of `5 lakh per child for cochlear implantation under ‘Sruthi Tharang’ scheme. The minister also said that apart from the private hospitals, the government will also upgrade the infrastructure of the government hospitals so that these cochlear implants can be carried out there as well.According to the project, an expert will visit every hospital in Kochi once a week to take the tests. If intimated by a phone call, the doctor will visit any hospital within the city. Based on various symptoms and parameters of the newborn, the high risk newborns will be selected from each hospital and subjected to the tests. So far, 40 infants have already been identified for the treatment. The Indian Academy of Paediatrics, one of the constituent members of childcare has procured 75 hearing aids from the National E N T Hospital, London. The hearing aids will be distributed to babies from economically backward families.
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