Dear Editor – Last week I wrote to your newspaper expressing my appreciation of the fact that a fresh start seems to have been made in making and fitting prosthetic limbs to the long waiting list of ex-NRH patients that previously had undergone amputations at the hospital as a consequence of suffering from advanced diabetes or from injuries.
I thought I would share with you the heart-warming story I came across in the international press about an 8 year old Syrian child who had been born without legs.
Maya, the little girl, had been seen crying in a camp for displaced persons in Syria’s north western Idlib province trying to walk around on a contraption her father had made from tuna fish cans, plastic tubing and fabric.
Her story was highlighted on social media and caught the attention of a Turkish prosthetics specialist who arranged, last week, for the child to be fitted with two prosthetic legs at a humanitarian clinic in Istabul.
The homemade prosthetics had allowed her to move about more easily, and helped her learn how to balance, shortening a two-week process to a single day when she was fitted with her new legs.
I really do hope the fresh efforts to make and custom fit prosthetic limbs to the 400 or so awaiting them in the Solomon Islands will gather pace and allow them, like Maya, overcome their walking disabilities very soon.
Frank Short
Bangkok, Thailand
