Dr Shruti Bansal, Consultant, ENT, SRCC Children’s Hospital managed by Narayana Health, shares her experience of the cochlear implant journey – the efforts put in, the ups and downs and more
In 1952, on a small island in Japan, it was observed that there was a group of monkeys who would enjoy eating sweet potatoes dropped in sand. They liked the taste of raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant. An 18-month-old female monkey one day accidentally dipped the dirty sweet potato in nearby stream and ate it. She really liked the taste of the sweet potato and taught the trick to her mother. It was quickly picked up by various other monkeys, and, in few years, all the young monkeys and most of the adult ones started doing the same. Some of the older monkeys who refused to learn new things continued eating dirty sweet potatoes.
One day, something startling took place. It is believed that in few years almost 99 (99 per cent) monkeys had learned the trick which led to some social improvement in eating habits. The day the 100th monkey learned to wash potatoes and eat – then it happened – by the evening, almost everyone in the tribe was washing and eating the sweet potatoes. The added energy of this 100th monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough! And surprisingly, it was noticed that this idea of washing and eating the potatoes had jumped over the seas and colonies of monkeys on other islands who had never met or seen these monkeys also started washing their sweet potatoes. Thus, when a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind.
The 100th monkey effect is a purported phenomenon in which a new behaviour or idea is said to spread rapidly by unexplained means from one group to all related groups once a critical number of members of one group exhibit the new behaviour. The behaviour is said to propagate even to groups which are physically separated and have no apparent means of communicating with each other. When I first heard this story from my friend Dr Ashish Narayankar, it just never left my mind. I found this to be an appealing and believable idea.
I joined SRCC Children’s Hospital back in March 2017 immediately after completing my cochlear-implant fellowship under Dr MV Kirtane. I was in awe of him, looking at his passion for cochlear implant and how it changed the lives of not only those kids who came to him with profound hearing loss, but also their families as a whole. I was a new ENT doctor in this new children’s hospital, but I clearly knew that I wanted to continue his passion and do my bit in helping more of such children. I was lucky to have Dr Prabodh Karnik as my head of the department who was like a guide and a friend. He encouraged me and supported me at every step and gave me freedom without questioning to do whatever was required to start the cochlear implant programme.
The icing on the cake was when Dr Kirtane agreed to join us as a mentor and support us for this programme in 2018. I still remember how much all the members from management team and myself had to pursue him to say yes. And, I knew how he was busy and occupied with his routine appointments and surgery schedules. His appointments were no less than three-months waiting. So, he agreeing to support and mentor us meant a lot. I promised him that I won’t let him regret his decision and we won’t bother him unnecessarily with any extra responsibilities.
Now, the challenge was to channelise all our resources so as to ensure that our patients have the ease and comfort of coming to SRCC Children’s Hospital, which meant that we made sure that they didn’t had to make multiple visits to hospital for clinical work-up as well as to get financial assistance. With relentless efforts of the entire management team, CSR team headed by Ankit Shrimali, and with support from Dr Soonu Udani as paediatrician on board, we could streamline the entire process for the patients. We had our good and bad days. We learnt from our mistakes but continued doing our good work.
Not to forget the support we got from our donors who believed in our cochlear programme and donated to help these children. We wanted to make sure that every parent who walked into the ENT department for assistance for cochlear implant was guided and explained every bit of procedure right from having realistic expectations, the prerequisites for being the right candidate for the surgery, the need for audio-verbal therapy for at least three-to-four years post-surgery and cost of maintenance of device in future.
All our patients felt reassured and well-informed about the journey they were ready to embark upon as a family. In all this, I just thrived on the idea that the next recruit might be the ‘100th Monkey.’ I believe in power of collective consciousness and I hope that this will bring out change in the society where so many of such kids are still waiting to be helped.
The 100th monkey effect isn’t about a being. But, maybe it’s a tool for a collective consciousness which will always be present in the world, especially in this day and age. With modern technology, opinions and behaviour can spread quickly across such a large span of distance. I hope and believe that the awareness about early detection of hearing loss and its management at the right time spreads more, and more children born with hearing loss can lead a near-normal life.
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