26 Jul 2013

By: Mike Britton (Admin)

Tweet

Add or Update Content (Login reqired)

I met my first Bolivian amputee patient today. I only needed to meet one. He was 23 years old. I am going to call him Eduardo. He lost his leg in a work accident...

I met my first Bolivian amputee patient today. I only needed to meet one. He was 23 years old. I am going to call him Eduardo. He lost his leg in a work accident, in a brick factory. After the accident he was fired. That is how it works here. It makes no difference what my views are on their workers rights, or the ethics and moral integrity of their behaviour. The simple reality was that this young man lost his leg, his job, his livelihood and his esteem. They are a resilient and dignified people of that there is no doubt. There is little time or place to indulge his circumstances. That indulgence is a first world luxury. 

 

In Eudardo's case is father fashioned him a limb from piping and cardboard. It was an amazing piece of rural handiwork and it did the job, kind of, in the same way a piece of cloth can be used to splint a leg. 

 

For Eduardo and here in Bolivia there is no healthcare, medicare, team of specialists or a social infrastructure to provide a limb. To purchase a limb would cost him about two thousand dollars (10 years of wages for him) 

 

I found that incomprehendable. So for him the existence of this centre - the only one of its kind in Bolivia is the only option. 

 

The Centre is staffed by two paid prosthetic technicians who earn an absolute minimum wage and the rest is done by volunteers. At the hub of the centre is Ivonne (a school teacher) and her husband Dante ( a paediatrician) who both oversee the day to running of the clinic and the assessment of the patients. They are under pinned by Matt Peppe, the American who put this whole centre together in the early days. 

 

Everything is so rudimentary, tools purchased from hardware stores, benches built of rustic timber. 

 

The crown jewel is the knee joint they have created. In tandem with a University in texas and a world expert there they have been given the basic tools to create a bendable, lockable knee. It is this basic technology that enables them to create prosthetic limbs for above the knee amputees and at a cost that is manageable through the donations that the centre receives. 

 

Ivonne asked me if I was surprised at how rudimentary the clinic was. The short answer is not at all. That is why our help is needed because here we will be able to make the most profound difference at the most basic level. This is not about making a place look neat, tidy and pretty, or ensuring the best and most up to date technology. This is as basic as it gets, screws, nuts, bolts, resin, wooden benches and giving people back their dignity, and their purpose and enabling them to move again. 

 

That is at the heart of you move me and I am inspired and humbled to be a part of this change and I thank each and every one of you for helping to make it possible because without you I would not be here today and we would not be making this difference in the world