While cochlear implants have been done in different parts of the Caribbean in small numbers, they are now available in Trinidad and Tobago.
Cochlear implants have been around since the 1950s in a very basic form.
A cochlear implant is an electronic device that can help people with severe hearing loss from inner-ear damage for whom hearing aids are not helpful. Hearing aids amplify sound, but cochlear implants bypass the damaged organs in the ear to deliver sound directly to the auditory nerve.
Prof Howard Francis, a specialist in otolaryngology (ear, nose and throat) at Duke University in the US, and Dr Solaiman Juman, ENT consultant at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Centre, have collaborated with the St Augustine Private Hospital to do cochlear implants.
Earlier this year, the team did its sixth and seventh implants, the latest for a teenage patient.