How can this be?
$40 for an artificial limb?
Yes its True. This includes fitting costs and suits a below knee amputee.
Wait till you see the price for an above knee prosthesis. read on…

Published on Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 10:14 | Updated at Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 10:43 | Source : Reuters

When Bhoopnarayan Jha lost his leg in an accident, the government employee also lost his will to live, until he got a “Jaipur Foot”.

Made from locally available and cheap materials, the rapid-fit, prosthetic limb is handed over for free to victims of road and rail accidents or landmine blasts, giving them, and thousands of others who can ill-afford a major injury or the costs of rehabilitation, a new lease on life.

The Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti organisation, which makes the prosthetic, is based in Rajasthan and the foot is named after the capital Jaipur.

“I told my doctor, just kill me. Every time I saw my bandaged stump, I did not want to live,” said 48-year-old Jha, who used to cycle 20 km to work every day.

“But I was up on my feet in an hour after strapping on the foot and in one month’s time I could run and catch a bus.”
The foot piece is made from rubber, the variety used in car tyres, and is available in standard shoe sizes.

The core of the foot is made from a cheap local variety of wood that is used for packing cases. The light, water-proof socket that cradles the stump is made from a high density polyethylene, the component of common water tanks.

“It costs us around Rs 1,750 (USD 38) to make a Jaipur Foot for below-knee amputees and about Rs 2,200 (USD 48) for those that have had amputations above the knee,” says V R Mehta, one of the directors of the Samiti organisation.

“But we give it free to all patients irrespective of their financial status.”

The Samiti has fitted over a million people around the world since its inception in 1975, also helping landmine victims from Kashmir and those who lost limbs in the 2001 Gujarat earthquake.

The organisation also gets orders from war-ravaged countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as quake-stricken Haiti, which are struggling with a large disabled population.

BACK ON THEIR FEET IN NO TIME
From the time a patient walks in and is examined by professionals, it takes less than a day to manufacture a Jaipur Foot. Workers sit in open sheds around a table and work with basic machinery as amputees mill around watching them make their prosthetics from scratch.

“A patient comes in the morning and can walk out on his own two feet by evening, a thing unimaginable in any part of the Western world. He can run or climb trees in a month’s time if he wants to,” Mehta said.

The foot is customised to fit the needs of people from all professions.

Most amputees from far-flung rural areas are usually farmers who squat for hours in knee-deep muddy water in paddy fields so the organisation devised a light, flexible and water-proof prosthetic that would allow them to carry on with their activities.

It’s easy to see why the Jaipur Foot is seen as the perfect solution for amputees in developing and strife-torn countries, where erratic government funding and a huge caseload often pose a major problem in reaching aid to the disabled.

Cost is also a major issue.

“A high-end, cutting-edge prosthetic limb in the west would cost anywhere between USD 8,000 to USD 9,000, out of reach of the poor,” Mehta said.

The organisation is now in talks with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to upgrade its technology and to provide funding, but remains true to its mission of providing quick, quality prosthetics to the poor, free of charge.

Mehta said that some organisations in India and abroad have started copying the Jaipur Foot technology, but they are charging for it. “They pass off their own prosthetics as Jaipur Foot and charge patients for them, which is strictly against our principles,” he added.

Published by Hydraujoint

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