In the second deaf related story arising from the devastating Oklahoma Tornado, the Mail Online reports that an adopted Chinese deaf orphan will now have a cochlear implant operation after the implant was found in the rubble of a destroyed hospital. Nurses had to pick through the rubble to find the equipment, worth $30,000. Read the full story here.
We also reported last week how a family that used American Sign Language were on national television describing their ordeal.
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handeyes
May 28, 2013
They r not going to implant her w a part that has been through a tornodo are they q. I’m all for recycling but if something is going to be surgically implanted in ur head u want it to be new and safe methink
Robert Mandara
May 29, 2013
Utter tosh and rubbish as usual from the Mail. Enough said.
deaflinguist
May 29, 2013
Not necessarily saying anything about the Mail – our favourite newspaper we love to hate – but CIs don’t just come in a plastic bag to be fished out by the surgeon!
They come in sterile sealed boxes, as does anything surgically implanted, set in a protective casing that protects them from movement. Never mind rubble, they don’t want them to get damaged in transit from factory to hospital and from cupboard to operating table. Even the external components are hermetically sealed in a sterile box and placed within a larger box to give to the recipient. I’m willing to bet that if it was fished out of that cupboard it was in one of those boxes within a box and the integrity of the seal would have been checked before deeming it suitable for implantation. And it would undergo integrity testing. There’s probably a back-up on the operating table (there usually is because they test that they’re working in situ before closing up).
If the external processor fails, in America the recipient may be given a refurbished (pre-loved or what you will) external unit as their medical insurance policies seek to keep costs down. It’s rather similar to the fact that we’re always being asked to give our glasses to developing countries – which I am happy to do. I hope somewhere someone is proudly wearing my Deirdre-style glasses with exactly the right prescription for them!
Hartmut Teuber
June 1, 2013
There might be more behind the scenes. For example audism of thinking ability to hear is absolutely necessary for anyone to have a quality of life. The story line is reinforcing such audist behavior. The adopting audiologist parents should not be given to parent a deaf child. Deaf parents should. Why can’t they simply accept deafness in the child, and enter into the Deaf Culture?
Did the nurse look for the CI specifically? Why not proceed to look for ANY salvageable items. Were any other hospital personell given the job to look for things of (medical) value in the rubble? I suspect, other equally worthy devices were left in the rubble. It is like, looking only for Aryans and rescuing them first in a mine disaster, leaving non-Aryans there.
CurlyGirly
June 1, 2013
Whilst this is a sweet story it is yet another example of the misconceptions around CI that are perpetuated by the media. Quotes such as “can now hear” forever reinforce the misconception that following a CI operation a deaf child will now magically become a hearing child. This is not the case. Research has shown that CI users in mainstream education face many of the same barriers and difficulties of deaf students with mild and moderate hearing losses. This is even without considering issues around identity and culture. And its not just the daily mail that is guilty. I have read similarly worded articles on the BBC.