Mangaluru, October 28: Free digital hearing aids were distributed to 133 identified beneficiary children at lions club here on Wednesday, October 28th. The event was jointly organized by lions clubs of Mangaluru, Kankanady, Padil, Mangalagangothri, and Chotamangaluru in association with Manasa cochlear and ENT centre Bengaluru and Naseema institute of speech and hearing Bengaluru.
Addressing the gathered, Health Minister U T Khader congratulated the lions club and all other organization associated in this project and said, Lions club has done really a good job. I assure them all the cooperation in the coming days too.
On this occasion, felicitations were given to those who had worked for the success of the project.
First vice governor of lions Arun Shetty, Dr Hans and cochlear implant surgeon from Bengaluru Dr Vasanthi, DHO Dr Ramakrishna Rao, and others were present.
Prior to this event, Minister Khader addressed a press meet at lions club, Mallikatte here on Wednesday, October 28th.
Speaking at the occasion Minister Khader said, Health department is striving to make Karnataka hearing impaired-free. On a pilot basis, Dakshina Kannada has been chosen for this. Sometime ago, in this connection a district-level health camp was held at Natekal, and later 10 children with hearing disability underwent successful cochlear implants penny free. 5 children will undergo surgery by next month. Under this project, the beneficiaries below the age of 5 years will be treated free of cost while the rest need to pay a fraction of the total amount. The cochlear implant procedure costs around Rs 9-11 lakhs per individual, and the hearing kit costs around Rs 15,000-30,000. About 50 percent of the cost is borne by the Central government and 30 percent is borne by the State. The rest will have to be paid by the beneficiary. Under public-private partnership, the project will be extended to other districts in the state shortly, he said.
