China's central finance authority will arrange funds of over CNY400 million to help those deaf children who are living in poverty.
This is said to be the largest amount that the country has ever invested on aiding the hearing disabled group.
Earlier, a representative from the China Disabled Persons' Federation disclosed that the government would allocate special funds this year to provide free cochlear implant surgery and post-surgery recovery training to children with hearing disabilities. The person said that the goal of the government is to provide cochlear implant surgery to 1,500 children from 2009 to 2011 and complete the post-surgery recovery training by the end of 2012. Besides, an emergent recovery program will be initiated to offer hearing aids free of charge as well as covering training fees for 9,000 children from poor families.
A survey shows that in 2006 there were 137,000 children aged below six who had hearing disabilities in China and 84% of these children were seriously deaf. Studies show that scientific measures taken in the early stage will help the hearing disabled children to overcome difficulties in living and study, and by wearing a hearing aid or receiving cochlear implant surgery plus scientific recovering training, the majority of these unlucky children will recover and be able to live and study like their healthy peers. It is said that 70% of the hearing disabled children in China are living in the rural areas where there the medical services and recovery conditions are backward and many of the children's parents can't afford to buy a hearing aid or cochlear implant for them.
Since 1988, China included the recovery of hearing disabled children into its five-year plan and it has gradually increased the investment on the cause.
