Apollo CI Clinic & SAHI

Team Sunrisers, spent last summer at Apollo hospitals launching the logo for their “The Hearing Impaired Girl Child Initiative”. It was heartwarming to see the hearing impaired children at Apollo Hospitals spending some quality time with their favourite cricketers and the players interacting with the cochlear implantees and listening with great interest about their implants and success stories!

This April 15th, Sunrisers are revisiting Apollo hospitals to celebrate the 1000th Cochlear Implant milestone, gracefully accomplished by the team. Also this time SAHI is going to unveil its music fest logo in the presence of successful and inspiring players like VVS Lakshman, Muthiah Muralitharan, Tom Moody, Shikhar Dhawan, Moises Henriques, Mustafizur Rehman, Aashish Reddy, Ricky Bhui, Abhimanyu Mithun, Naman Ojha and Eoin Morgan.

The Apollo Cochlear Implant Clinic, first in south India, was established in 1994 at the Apollo Health City, Hyderabad. The Clinic headed by Dr.E.C.Vinaya Kuamr and Co-ordinated by Dr.K.Rambabu and Dr. Jaswinder Singh is a dedicated implant team of renowned ENT Surgeons, experienced Audiologists, Speech pathologists, AVT Therapists, psychologist, a registered nurse and support staff. Every year, the Cochlear Implant Clinic helps more than 150 hearing impaired adults and children gain improved access to sound; some of them hearing sounds for the first time.

The Apollo CI team has also set a remarkable World record in conducting the highest number of Cochlear Implant surgeries (18) in a single day recorded by Limca book of records 2008. This March, the team has reached one of the biggest milestone i.e., 1000cochlear Implants performed since 1994. Our Cochlear Implant Program has grown to be one of the largest pediatric implant programs in India and South Asia.

SAHI or Society to Aid the Hearing Impaired is an 11 year old Indian NGO that strives to help and identify underprivileged hearing and speech impaired children from the extreme rural parts of the state that have little or no access to modern medical treatment. Since its establishment in November 2004, SAHI has been addressing this problem by means of conducting camps in remote areas of the state. Children with learning disabilities or hearing loss are given free hearing aids and those with ear diseases are given free ear surgeries. SAHI also provides financial aid to children requiring cochlear implant surgeries.

SAHI’s “The Hearing Impaired Girl Child Initiative” project seeks to help hearing impaired girls under the age of fifteen years to get the gift of hearing through the cochlear implant surgery. This expensive and state-of-the-art Cochlear Implant surgery costs approximately Rs.8 lakhs. This without financial aid, is very expensive and beyond the reach of the common man.

SAHI is also conducting a SAHI Music festival-fundraiser in the month of July to support more children under this initiative. The SAHI Music Festival is another innovative initiative from SAHI Think Tank’s ever evolving stable of Engagement programs and Events. This particular event is designed to generate awareness to a cross section of society with an emphasis on Young adults and GenY. The format of the event will be akin to a competitive Music Fest that showcases local talent from 3 distinct categories – Schools, Colleges and Corporates. A fun event that ties in wonderfully with SAHI’s motto, Let All Hear, using Music as the language that cuts all barriers and bridges distances between people.