Patna, Sept. 25: The irony could not be missed in the case of five-year-old Shravan Kumar, a resident of Hanuman Nagar locality of the city. Named Shravan (which means listening in Sanskrit) after his birth, the boy was soon detected with a hearing disability.

Today, however, Shravan moved a step closer to the possibility of hearing sounds after the first-ever cochlear implant in the state was conducted on him at a city hospital.

Dr Ameet Kishore, a leading ENT and neuro-otologic surgeon of the country who is associated with Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, New Delhi, led a team of doctors who performed the marathon surgery on the boy at the clinic of Dr Shashi Ranjan, a renowned ENT specialist.

“In cochlear implant, an electronic device is surgically fitted to provide a sense of sound to a person who is deaf or hard of hearing. Cochlear implants can restore sense of sound in patients suffering deafness because of loss of sensory hair cells in their cochlea,” Kishore told The Telegraph on the sidelines of a seminar on “Deafness — its diagnosis and treatment using cochlear transplantation” later.

He added: “In patients suffering from hearing disability, cochlear implant can restore sufficient hearing to allow unaided understanding of speech in a quiet background. However, the restored, electrical hearing is much less rich than natural hearing and offers limited appreciation of musical melody or speech understanding in noisy environments.”

The boy’s hearing aid will be turned on three weeks later and he will need year-long speech therapy to be able to speak.

“In India, about 25,000 children are born every year with severe hearing disabilities. The major causes leading to the problems are diseases during pregnancy, lack of oxygen during child birth or unexplained birth defects. Tragedy with these kids is that they also develop speaking disability too as they learn to speak only when they can hear sounds. Cochlear implant is a boon for such kids. Its result is better if the surgery is performed in early stage of life,” said Kishore.

Experts said apart from congenitally deaf kids, cochlear implant is beneficial for post-lingually deaf adults (victims of a form of deafness that develops after the acquisition of speech, usually after the age of six) and post-lingually impaired people, usually children, who have lost hearing due to diseases such as meningitis.

Dr Niveeta Narayan, who runs SpHear Speech and Hearing Clinic in Delhi and Patna, said: “The implant costs about Rs 6-7 lakh but with government’s support, such surgeries will become a boon for people who cannot afford to go out of the state for treatment.”

Deputy chief minister Sus-hil Kumar Modi announced during the seminar that the government will consider extending financial support for cochlear implant in the state.