JUBAIL: A medical team at the Royal Commission Hospital in Jubail has performed Saudi Arabia’s first electronic cochlear implant operation.
The head of the team, Dr. Mohammed Al-Sheikh, said the implant was successfully conducted for a 15-month-old baby who was born completely deaf. An Auditory Brainstem Response test was previously run to ascertain the nature of the baby’s condition when the parents noticed its failure to respond to sound.
Dr. Mohammed Al-Muqbel, head of the health services program at the Royal Commission in Jubail, praised the efforts of Al-Sheikh and his staff. Al-Sheikh added that credit was also due to the Newborn Hearing Screening Program at the hospital, which worked in collaboration with the audiology unit to provide early intervention and treatment for babies born with hearing defects.
The operation, meanwhile, represents a groundbreaking moment in technological development for Saudi medicine, making the next generation of auditory aids available to citizens, and removing barriers for deaf children from an increasingly early age.
