Padma Shri Awardee Dedicates 50 Years to Return the Gift

Dr Sandra Desa Souza is the first Indian doctor to perform cochlear implant surgery. She has performed surgery on underprivileged children with hearing impairments, winning a place in the Limca Book of World Records and a Padma Shri for her works.

Dr Sandra Desa Souza had always been exposed to children with hearing impairment. Her parents ran a school for children with hearing impairment and Sandra as a kid used to help them in organised events. She naturally developed a soft spot for kids like that. “It broke my heart to see these children struggle to communicate,” Dr Sandra, now 79, tells, “These kids used to wear hearing aids, couldn’t speak, and could only hear loud sounds. There was no surgery as such for them in those days.”

Because of this, she dedicated her life to people with hearing impairment and in 1987, she became the first Indian doctor to perform cochlear implant surgery. This achievement earned her a name in the Limca Book of Records. Over the years, her programme to offer surgery to underprivileged children has changed around 2,800 lives, and in 2020, she won the Padma Shri for her efforts.

In 1974, Dr Sandra began working at Jaslok Hospital. She used to travel abroad for conferences and workshops and on one such occasion, she met the owner of a cochlear implant manufacturing company. This made her think of bringing cochlear surgery to India. When she returned, she organised a workshop on cochlear surgery in Jaslok Hospital. In the workshop, a foreign doctor performed four surgeries on kids with hearing impairment and Dr Sandra performed the fifth surgery. And like this, she became the first Indian doctor to perform cochlear surgery. Over the years, she continued to perform such surgeries at Jaslok.

But over the years she realised that many underprivileged and rural children have no money or infrastructure to access these surgeries. So in 2002, with colleague Dr Dillion D’souza, Dr Sandra began running a cochlear implant surgery programme for underprivileged children across Maharashtra. This was a success and children from all around India began to come to their facility to get cochlear implants fitted.

This programme by Dr Sandra is funded by various charities, as well as the TATA trust, and caters to children across India, helping them undergo surgery, rehabilitation, and long term follow-ups.

Dr Sandra says that when the programme first began, the ENT fraternity thought it was too soon to begin cochlear implant surgeries in India. “There was no FDA approval for the procedure at the time either,” she recalls. “Moreover, there are still some gaps in terms of follow-ups. When these children go back to their villages, they suffer because of a lack of speech therapists in the areas.”

“Regardless, when I see how children are finally able to speak normally, go to school, and even master two to four languages, I feel triumphant,” she notes.

Credits: The Better India

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-Staff Reporter