All for a Foot

India's Jaipur Foot will set up a ‘full-fledged’ factory in Bangladesh to meet the never-ending demand for artificial limbs in the wake of frequent accidents like Savar building collapse.

There is no official figure on how many artificial limbs Bangladesh needs a year, but only road accidents leave around 10,000 killed and 50,000 injured every year, many of who loose their limbs.

The government-run workshop at the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation (NITOR) lack manpower and technology to make quality and durable artificial limbs like the 'Jaipur Foot, using which one can sit, walk, run, climb, pedal cycles or even swim.

“They (NITOR) have accepted our proposal,” Sanjeev Kumar, manager of the NGO Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti that owns the Jaipur Foot technology, told bdnews24.com on Wednesday in an interview.

The Samiti is a no-profit social organisation.

Kumar is leading a team to assess the need of artificial limbs of the Bangladesh after its worst-ever building collapse on a request from the Indian government.

The Samiti will come back again with its mobile limb making factory in October and will help more people apart from Savar victims.

Kumar said they would also train up two Bangladeshi technicians with their home-grown state-of-the-art technology during the special camp.

“We will come here for 3 weeks or more and will leave one of our technology supervisors here for another two or three months. When we go back these two will carry on with the technology and keep on providing the follow up to the old fitted patients and the new patients,” he said as he shared their plan.

“But all depends on the government. We will report back to our government,” he said.

The April building collapse crushed more than 1,100 people to death and injured about 3,000. Of them 28 lost their limbs.

Kumar said Bangladesh sought mostly upper limbs support, which is more complicated, for the Savar victims.

It’s all on behalf of government of India”, the Manager said. The Indian government provides them 25 percent of their annual budget of around $3.5 million.

They do not charge any patients for services as they believe that would marginalise some vulnerable groups. Rich donors make up the rest of the budget.

Forbes magazine has said the Samiti's $45 ultramodern prosthetic is simply unmatched and far better that a similar $12,000 limb produced in the United States.

“The beauty (of our foot) is it’s light and durable and people can run, walk, squat, climb trees, work in the field, swim and even perform prayer,” Kumar said.

Their knee replacement developed in cooperation with Stanford University costs only $20, and was named one of the 50 best inventions in the world by Time Magazine.

Kumar said they inherited the limb making technology from the British, but modified it to suit Indian conditions.

“We made the technology as per our need,” he said. “The inherited technology was heavy and people could not work in the field. One has to use a shoe. If you use shoe you cannot go to the field. If you remove the shoe, you will lose the alignment of the prosthesis."

“Our technology makes the foot looks like a normal foot. The total limb is water proof which means the person can work in fields if he is a farmer...it’s all terrain foot......it will allow you to walk bare foot."

“It allows you to go to mosques or temples...you can squat, you can sit cross-leg that what our people usually sit.

“Even that (British technology) was not appropriate for Indian hot and humid weather. So we have to address the issue so that it can manage the sweating,” he said as he described how it all began in India.

As a non-profit social enterprise running 23 centres in India and many camps in foreign countries like trouble hit Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan, and Rwanda, they have served more than 1.35 million people since its inception in 1975.

They call their technology ‘rapid-fit prosthesis’ under which anyone can come in the morning and go back in the evening with the limb, with training how to use.

“It takes two hours for us to make a foot,” the Manager said, “with average life (of the artificial limb) three to five years depending on the use”.

He said people also need follow up once fitting the artificial limbs. “So we also offered to set up a Prosthetic school in Bangladesh like medical schools that will offer courses for technicians”.

“We have diploma courses. So we will see through our government whether we can take students and train them up so that NITOR can employ them,” he said as he stressed on more government collaboration for the sustainability and people’s help.

Indian film actress and classic Bharat Natyam exponent Sudha Chandran danced with Jaipur Foot after she lost a leg in a 1981 accident.