Taiwan hospital donates artificial cochleas to mainland's needy deaf people

From: Xinhua, China - Sep 2, 2003

BEIJING, Sept. 2 (Xinhuanet) -- The Changgung Memorial Hospital of Taiwan has donated one million yuan (120,000 US dollars) worth of artificial cochleas to the Beijing Tongren Hospital to help treat those with hearing problems on the Chinese mainland.

The five sets of donated artificial cochleas arrived Monday at the hospital.

Statistics show that China now has 20.57 million deaf or partially deaf people, the largest number in the world, and about 800,000 of whom are children under the age of seven.

The number of people who are deaf or partially deaf is increasing by over 30,000 annually. Causes of the condition include improper use of medicine, congenital defects, infection, diseases, environmental pollution, and accidents.

Professor Han Demin, president of the Beijing Tongren Hospital,said that China has several million severely deaf people who can hear nothing even with the help of a hearing aid.

At present, only about 1,500 people have been implanted with artificial cochleas as many can not afford the 200,000 yuan (some 24,180 US dollars) cost for a single cochlea.

A source with the Changgung Memorial Hospital said that his hospital had the intention to donate more artificial cochleas to mainland deaf people in the future.
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