116 Indian Journal of Medical Sciences, Vol. 65, No. 3, March 2011 COCHLEAR IMPLANTATION IN INDIA: A PUBLIC HEALTH PERSPECTIVE SUNEELA GARG, RITESH SINGH 1 , SHELLY CHADHA 2 , ARUN KUMAR AGARWAL 2 ABSTRACT Around 7% of the population of India suffers from profound deafness. More than a million children needs either hearing aid or cochlear implant surgery to restore their hearing power. Many of them had never heard a single word since their birth. Still only 5000 cochlear implant surgery has been conducted in the country, the first being nearly 20 years ago, and most of them in private health facilities where the patient paid out of their pocket. The main reason of such poor penetration of the surgery in masses is the inhibitory cost associated with cochlear implant surgery and the lack of trained man-power to conduct such surgeries. The other reason is being the government engagement with other pressing health needs of the society resulting in the shout of ear care falling on deaf ears. With the advent of National Program for Prevention and Control of Deafness (NPPCD) in 2006, there is renewed interest in tackling this public health disaster. Key words: Cochlear implant, deafness, disability, national program for prevention and control of deafness PRACTITIONER SECTION Department of Community Medicine, 1 College of Medicine and JNM Hospital, Kalyani, West Bengal, 2 ENT, Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi, India. Address for correspondence: Dr. Ritesh Singh, Department of Community Medicine, College of Medicine and JNM Hospital, Kalyani, Nadia, West Bengal - 741 235, India. E-mail: drriteshsingh@yahoo.com INTRODUCTION Ears are one of the most vital sense organs of our body, without which we cannot communicate with fellow human beings. We tend to underestimate its importance till it is lost. Nearly 80% of the hearing impairment (HI) cases are avoidable. With ever-increasing urbanization of the population in developing countries where loud noise is produced from the automobiles and factories couple with no legislation in force to curb the noise, the problem is bound to increase several fold in coming years. The surgically implanted electronic device in cochlear implant is boon to millions of persons with severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss. Cochlear implants bypass damaged hair cells in the inner ear and directly stimulate the auditory nerve to send information to the brain. But, the surgery is beyond the reach to many genuine cases in low and medium income (LAMI) countries like Access this article online Quick Response Code: Website: www.indianjmedsci.org DOI: 10.4103/0019-5359.104786 PMID: ******************************