P Srinivasan I [email protected]
Newborn hearing screening should be made as a part of the national immunization campaign. Sawai Man Singh Hospital Jaipur, ENT department professor Dr Pawan Singhal said that four in 1000 children throughout the country have to face the problem of deafness. On not getting timely check-up, these children are unable to speak, therefore newborn hearing screening should be made compulsory and should be made the part of national immunization campaign, in which hearing screening of all the newborns is done.
The Voice of Silence campaign was started in 2020 and it is carried out across the country jointly by Sukham Foundation and Association of Otolaryngologists of India. One lakh children from various parts of the country under this campaign will send postcards to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Health Minister Dr Harshvardhan.
The brand ambassador of this campaign Lipi said, “Everyone has the right of hearing, then only they will be able to move ahead in their life. With the newborn hearing screening, the level of children’s life can be improved. Modi and Harshvardhan have been demanded to make newborn hearing screening as part of national immunization campaign.”
Apart from this, a large number of people are facing the problem of hearing loss due to changing lifestyle and changing times due to corona and lockdown. The children who are attending online classes by putting headphones or earbuds are getting affected along with many youth and elderly people, which is really concerning.
ENT doctors, Sukham Foundation and Association of Otolaryngologists of India officials expressed great concern on this problem.
Dr Singhal said that the general public themselves have to be aware then only this problem can be dealt with.
Earlier the problem of hearing impairment was congenital or among those people who were working in high blasts areas such as mines or loud sound, but now during the lockdown in the corona period the students attended online classes using earbuds or headphones and now they are also facing the problem of hearing loss, he said. The hearing capacity of a person is 80 decibels, but today in the modern lifestyle, people are suffering from hearing loss due to using headphones and listening to music and other things on high volume.
Dr Singhal said that in the changing lifestyle people are not able control their eating habits and obese people have high risk of hearing impairment.
He said that everyone has to improve their lifestyle especially has to change their food and daily habits. Besides this, they should always avoid high noise emitting crackers, high volume and using headphones and earbuds.
