The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Silent Melody Charitable Trust launched

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jun 11, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Silent Melody Charitable Trust launched

Staff Reporter

It is an extension of the `Silent Melody Project'

CHENNAI: A pilot study by the Madras ENT Research Foundation (MERF) on 485 newborn children at a corporation maternity centre revealed eight of them were born with a definite hearing impairment.

That would mean over 1.6 per cent of the screened babies were deaf, a disturbing figure against the worldwide statistic of 0.02 percent, said MERF chairman Dr. Mohan Kameswaran.

In an attempt to build up a reliable database on children born with hearing impairments, the `Silent Melody Project', the brainchild of MERF and the Rotary Club of Madras Esplanade, was born in July last year. As an extension of the project, the Silent Melody Charitable Trust was launched on Thursday.

Vehicle donated

A well-wisher, S. Nagarajan, donated a vehicle to transport the equipment used to screen neonatal babies. Dr. Kameswaran said he hoped to continue neonatal screening over the next three years to validate the information with a bigger number pool. MERF, which has the equipment used for this screening — Oto Acoustic Equipment Screener — and the manpower, would conduct the tests while the Rotary Club would provide the logistics.

The Foundation would also offer its equipment to industries at a nominal fee, so they could test their employees for industrial deafness. The money would go towards making the trust self-sufficient. The Silent Melody Project has also been testing students at Corporation schools for deafness.

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