She Hope Prostheses needed and corrective surgery
Diane Emerson, volunteer at She Hope, explains what it is needed in prostheses and corrective surgery at their centres in Kashmir.
Thank you Diane and all the team for your work!
1. Prostheses: We have lots of experience in these, and Handicap International is funding a prosthetic workshop here at the Hope Disability Centre. The project of Handicap International with us includes support for children with mobility disabilities only. So we have no funds or support at this time for upper limb prostheses: arms and hands. Nor do we have any support for patients above the age of 18 who need any type of prosthesis. So if the good Dr. Barnosell in Spain would help us with these, we would be most grateful.
As far as experience, going through the annual reports, I note that 19 prostheses were fitted in fiscal year 2006-2007, and 48 fitted in fiscal year ending March 2009. So that is pretty good experience for a small organisation, I think.
2. Corrective Surgery On the corrective surgery side, this is where Sami's heart is. And I can understand why. If we can correct a child's disability, such as club foot, when he or she is young, it is more likely that the child will be able to grow up with no disability whatsoever, and for the rest of this child's life, no extra resources will be needed to educate, train, or assist this person. Now that is a really good investment!! Sami says he is capable of, and wants to do, 60 corrective surgeries a year. Last year he did 45. He is able to do so many because of his solid relationships with the surgeons and other medical personnel at the public hospital in Srinagar. The doctors there donate their time to Sami's kids, because they know he does such great work, and they know that Sami does everything possible to make sure the post operative care is superb. So if F. Rijpma from Holland would like to assist in this effort, we could really use it. Because HI's project does not include any surgeries whatsoever, to any age, for any reason.
I have also loaded videos of surgery patients on the Hope Website, http://www.hopecentre.webs.com
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