Slum-dwellers turn deaf ear to hearing problems

HYDERABAD: Infection of the middle ear which leads to hearing impairment is often neglected by the majority of the slum dwelling population in the city out of ignorance or unavailability of appropriate health care services.
To address this issue, a pilot project to screen four slum pockets in the city-Shriramnagar, MS Makhta, BS Makhta and Krishnanagar, was launched on Wednesday by Medtronic and Health Management and Research Institute (HMRI).The first-of-its-kind in the city, data for the project will be obtained after screening 70,000 people over the next one year. A recent screening to detect hearing impairment among 100 slum dwellers in Shriramnagar area revealed that 30 persons needed treatment while six needed to undergo surgery.
Infection of the middle ear is essentially collection of fluid in the ear initially causing partial, and if not addressed, complete hearing impairment. More prominent among children, infection of the middle year affects at least two thirds of children in a population before they turn one. "Hearing impairment among children has a direct bearing on the education of the child. It is important to address the problem early before the child goes completely deaf," said Milind Shah, VP, South Asia and MD, Medtronic India, which conducted the study.
"We have trained community health workers under the guidelines of the World Health Organisation so they can reach out to the slum dwellers at the grass root level. It's an 'at-your-doorstep process," said Balaji Utla, CEO, HMRI. The screening process combining mobile technology with telemedicine was created exclusively for this project.
The tool, ENTraview is an android based oto -scope-endoscope that enables the community health worker to examine the patient's ear canal, symptoms and diagnoses and transmit it via 3G data to the internet based management system.
"We have been working on the aspects of this project for the past year-and-a-half years. We aim to reach out to as many beneficiaries as possible. Screening and treatment at the ENT Hospital will be both offered for free," said Jacob Paul, VP Finance and strategy, Medtronic surgical technologies.