Sharjah’s Al Qassimi Hospital restores little girl’s hearing

Mozan received a cochlear implant to allow her to hear properly. Courtesy Al Qassimi Hospital

DUBAI // A five-year-old Sudanese girl was able to hear her parents' voice for the first time after undergoing life-changing surgery this week at Al Qassimi Hospital in Sharjah.

Mozan was one of two patients to go through the first cochlear implant surgery at the hospital this week, marking the official launch of the cochlear implant programme.

The surgery was conducted in cooperation with Sharjah City for Humanitarian Services, which received donations to help pay for the programme.

“The cochlear implant surgeries performed this week are a major step forward for Al Qassimi Hospital to offer severely hearing impaired and deaf patients an attainable chance to successfully regain their hearing,” said Dr Abdulla Ibrahim, head of the hospital’s ENT department.

“Expanding our ENT department and offering the latest technology of hearing implants in combination with highest quality standards in surgery and aftercare will position Al Qassimi as one of the leading hospitals in the UAE, and the region, to perform successful cochlear implant surgeries.”

Mozan received a Concerto cochlear implant in a minimally-invasive surgery that lasted less than two hours.

The Concerto is the world’s smallest titanium implant produced by MED-EL, a provider of hearing implant systems. The device directly stimulates the hearing nerve when activated. Activation involves switching on the audio processor, Rondo, to transmit sound to the cochlear implant. The patient can adjust the settings of the processor through an easy to use remote control according to their hearing needs.

When doctors activated the microphone on Mozan’s cochlear implant audio processor, she could hear environmental sounds for the first time. That’s when her father, standing behind her, spoke her name.

“She immediately started smiling and said ‘baba,’ which means dad in Arabic,” said David Raetz, CEO of MED-EL Middle East. “Then her parents started to clap from behind her back and she was so excited that she could hear it and started looking around the room to see where the sound was coming from.”

The implant allows patients like Mozan to grow up to hear, communicate and develop like other children her age.

“Hearing is the only sense that can be recovered and by working closely with reputable hospitals, such as Al Qassimi, we are making the treatments available to a wider segment of patients with any type of moderate to severe hearing loss,” Mr Raetz said.

“MED-EL hearing implants are based on years of research, development and breakthrough technology with the goal of making patients enjoy a better quality of life while having superior service at the same time.”

The surgery was performed in close cooperation with Dr Abdulrahman Hagr, a leading surgeon from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

“As with Mozan’s case, the earlier the surgery is performed on a child, there is a better chance of success in regaining or activating their hearing,” Dr Hagr said. “The longer the patient waits, the rate of success decreases because the most critical period for speech and language development is in the early years of childhood.”