The gift of hearing for Kealeboga

On 3 December 2009 - the International Day of People with Disabilities - three-year-old Kealeboga Bogatsu's disability was transformed into an ability when her cochlear implant device was switched on.

The Steve Biko Academic Hospital Board has recently embarked on the Steve Biko/Robert Kerr Cochlear Implant Program to turn hearing disabled people's silence into “A Beautiful Noise”. It had its first case successfully performed on 24 June 2009 on Arnold Henderson, a 68-year-old Eersterust resident whose implant was funded by the hospital's Robert Kerr Trust.

Kealeboga is one of three children and the only with a hearing impairment. Her mother suspected that something was wrong at the age of 19 months and Kealeboga received her first hearing aid in October 2008. She received speech therapy and intensive auditory training for a year, however, showed limited progress due to the severity of her hearing loss.

Due to her urgent desire to become part of the hearing world, Kealeboga experienced high levels of frustration at times when she was unable to express herself and was accordingly also referred for psychological treatment. Kealeboga's mother accompanied her to weekly speech and psychological treatment sessions for almost a year prior to the operation. Her commitment, and Kealeboga's potential to benefit from a cochlear implant made Kealeboga a good candidate for the Steve Biko Academic Hospital's cochlear implant program. The operation that was funded by the hospital's Robert Kerr Trust and Mrs Bogatsu's employer, a lawyer firm who prefers to stay anonymous, was successfully performed by Professors JG Swart and M Tsifularo on 28 October 2009 - Kealeboga's first step to enter the hearing world.

A whole new world brought to life

Hearing is a basic sense that connects us to people and our environment. People with hearing disabilities often have to endure loneliness and isolation. A cochlear implant can reconnect people like Kealeboga to sound. It can literally bring a whole new world to a disabled person who could previously not hear a thing. It can give them the opportunity to develop or regain spoken language, attend a mainstream school, expand their career opportunities, increase their income potential, function independently and reduce their dependency on the state and social services.

Only a few state hospitals nationally had performed cochlear implants, making the operations at the Steve Biko Academic Hospital a significant stride for the public health sector in dealing with hearing disabilities.

Not life-threatening, but…

Being a government facility, this hospital is daily confronted with patients who simply do not have the means to improve their health. The Hospital Board expressed a need to do more than merely accept patients' fate in cases where funding was unavailable and initiated a fundraising project to start addressing the immense physical and emotional needs disadvantaged state patients often endure. Among the many health needs that exist, the cochlear implant program was chosen to start the Board's help program due to the huge need that exists and the substantial difference it could make to hearing impaired people. Being deaf is not a life threatening condition, but deprives people from a very basic function that is required to live a meaningful life. However, the Hospital Board plans more projects to assist with even more crucial health needs in future.

The Steve Biko/Robert Kerr Cochlear Implant Program will focus on disadvantaged people who do not have the financial or social means to afford a cochlear implant. It aims to raise R1-million in 2010 to help more people like Kealeboga. They had their first fundraising golf day on 2 December with the former Springbok rugby player, Kobus Wiese, who volunteered his skills as MC at the prize-giving dinner, and the CEO of the hospital, Dr Ernest Kenoshi, who participated in the event.

Get involved

The public, schools, clubs, societies, celebrities and the business sector are invited to get involved to reach this R1-million target. Hearing impaired people hear “A Beautiful Noise” when their communities say “Yes” to contribute to restore their hearing.

On a recent question to Henderson - the hospital's first cochlear implant recipient - if the implant makes any difference to his life, his wife was the first to respond: “You do not understand. We have a life again.”

Contact Nicolene Steynberg at +27 (0) 12 - 354 2037/+27 (0) 83 607 0603 if you would like to contribute or volunteer your skills to raise money for this life-changing cause. Or contribute now by sms'ing noise to 39101 (R15 per sms).