Jesunifemi, who was suffering from bilateral profound sensory neural hearing loss, which results in hearing and speaking disability, had a cochlear implant surgery done on Monday. “The child will hear the first sound, one month from now. We will then provide him with a hearing aid which will directly work by stimulating auditory nerves inside the ear,” said Vaid.

While none of the Nigerian hospitals offer cochlear implant, it would’ve cost Olunfunke double that she was charged here - Rs 50,000 - if she had gone to a private hospital. The equipment cost Rs 5 lakh. A cochlear implant is a surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing.

“As an infant he would not respond to music and sounds around him. Initially it was tough for me and my husband to accept that our child sufffered from loss of hearing and speech. I took him to the hospital where I work and was told that my child had this disability,” said Olunfunke.

Now they’ll need to stay in Pune for three months to undergo counselling sessions - for both parent and child - to cope up with the introduction of sound and language, in this case English as the therapists can’t teach Jesunifemi his mother tongue.

“These type of cases have to be first introduced to sound as they have never heard anything before and then language is taught. Within her three months of stay here my duty is to guide the mother about language development,” said Vidya Padsule, therapist and teacher for the deaf at KEM Hospital’s rehabilitation centre.

“Jesunifemi has an elder brother, who’s stayed back with my husband. Once I knew there was a cure, I couldn’t sit idle. Though it’s costing us a lot to come and stay in India for three months, we decided that it had to be done but now I’m hard up and am seeking help from NGOs working in healthcare in India,” Olunfunke said.