Pune Municipal Corporation opens deaf rehabilitation centre in Kothrud

The centre also offers speech therapy, which helps the child to identify sound and words

The Pune Municipal Corporation, (PMC) in association with pune-based Cochlea trust has started a rehabilitation centre for the deaf people in Kothrud.

The centre, located at the Bindu Madhav Thackeray Hospital, Kothrud was inaugurated on Monday, by Chandrakant Patil, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state unit president. (HT/PHOTO)

The centre, located at the Bindu Madhav Thackeray Hospital, Kothrud was inaugurated on Monday, by Chandrakant Patil, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state unit president. Pune mayor, Murlidhar Mohol, leader of house (PMC) Dheeraj Ghate, Cochlea trustee Dr Avinash Wachasunder and BJP leader Sandeep Khardekar were present for the event.

“PMC has taken an inclusive decision by starting this centre for the deaf people, especially kids. I suffered from eye cancer a few years ago. I was treated with timely treatment and now living a normal life. Similarly, this rehabilitation centre will held stream line the lives of the disabled and help them start a normal life,” said Patil.

Mohal said that the PMC will help to start more such facilities for the persons with disabilities at Thackeray hospital.

Dr Wachasunder said, “A team from Cochlea including an ENT surgeon, audiologist, speech therapist, hearing aid technician, special educators, psychologist and social workers will be present at the centre. Children, if diagnosed with the hearing disability at a young age, can be treated by cochlear implants or hearing aids. The process of cochlear implants is explained to the parents,” he said.

BJP corporator Manjushree Khardekar took the initiative of this centre said, “When I visited the Cochlea School in Sangamwadi, I saw that they are functioning in a limited space. Hence, we constructed this new centre at the PMC-run Thackeray hospital.”