Kerala: Government Medical College to get advanced auditory-verbal therapy centre  

Kozhikode : The Government Medical College at Kozekode is planning to introduce a new and advanced auditory verbal therapy centre (AVT) that will help deaf children and adults develop appropriate spoken language as per their age.

The facility will cost upto Rs 84.34 lakh, with the old centre to be renovated, which was earlier set up under the state government initiative on disabilities scheme of the Kerala State Social Security Mission.

An amount of Rs 52.85 lakh by the State Social Security Mission has been given to the new commissioned centre for the purchase of latest equipment such as ENT surgical equipment, operation microscope, renovating the operation theatre and addition of sophisticated equipment to the theatre.

The AVT centre will be set up under centre for audiology and speech pathology of the ENT department and will have 12 rooms for rehabilitation with 22 seats for deaf children to be rehabilitated after undergoing cochlear implant.

Facilities including equipments to check the quality of hearing aid provided to the deaf children or adults as well as expert therapy which will be provided in groups to the recipients of the cochlear implant will be present in the AVT centre.

"At present the records with authorities of the Kozhikode medical college, in total 195 patients have undergone cochlear implant surgery at the medical college. Out of this 151 were children who received free cochlear implant surgery at the medical college. Besides, another 60 children below one year of age have been undergoing pre-implement therapy at the centre, Of this, 151 children received free cochlear implant under the 'Sruthi Tharangam' project," reports TOI.

Dr R Suma, project coordinator said the existing centre lacks enough space to meet the growing number of patients from the Malabar region. "The centre will help carry out rehabilitation and speech therapy of children and adults who had undergone cochlear implant. We aim at early detection, early rehabilitation and early cochlear implementation under the national programme for prevention and control of deafness,'' she said.