AMPUTATION
Amputation is a mutilating procedure which no surgeon does with a light heart. However it has to be done now and then to save the life of a patient. Most often the indication is a malignant tumor (a cancer) growing on an extremity - quite often an unattended chronic leg ulcer which has turned into a malignancy (squamous cell carcinoma) with time. Sometimes because of trauma, when the injuries are so severe that the extremity cannot be saved
The sad thing is that we have no means to supply our patients with prosthesis, so when amputating a leg, the patient has to limp around with crutches for the rest of his/hers life. Orthopedic workshops which make prosthesis are only found in Addis Abeba and other big cities, and our poor patients can never make it to get that service due to lack of money. In contrary to a back home in Europe, it is therefore better here to lose an arm than a leg. You can still survive as a farmer working on the land with one arm, but not with one leg.
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As always it is simply a matter of money. Readymade leg prosthesis in different sizes, left and right, are available, and can be ordered from UK. To fit them to the individual is a simple procedure, which could easily be done here in Aira, but we have no funds for this purpose.
Maybe you have seen the movie “The way to Kandahar”? In that movie there is a scene which shows the way prosthesis are dropped and parachuted from an airplane to supply clinics in remote areas. Why won’t any NGO give similar support to our extremely impoverished rural population here in Ethiopia?
One very clever patient made his own prosthesis.
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