With the capacity of manufacturing 300 limbs a month, the department has started working to prepare at least 600 limbs in a month.
Initially, the Mayo Hospital management has provided indigenous raw material for some 500 limbs to the department. Hospital medical superintendent Dr Fayyaz Ranjha said raw material for more 500 limbs would be provided to the department during the next month.
Dr Ranjha said the Punjab government had alerted the hospital to manufacture some 200 artificial limbs in advance.
When contacted, physical medicine and rehabilitation department head Dr Khalid Jamil Akhtar said the earthquake victims requiring limbs and braces had started coming to the Mayo Hospital.
Saying that spine cord injury patients immediately require braces, he informed this reporter that 11 patients had so far been fitted with braces, while there were some 13 patients that needed artificial limbs.
Dr Akhtar, however, said the stage of measuring and fitting artificial limbs would begin after around three weeks when these patients’ wounds would heal properly.
Making an estimate, he said, some 8,000 to 10,000 earthquake victims would be requiring artificial limbs. Dr Babar Khalil, orthopaedician from Abbotabad, told Dawnthat his team had conducted a survey and found that there were some 600 quake victims who had their limbs amputated in the Abbotabad city only.
Dr Akhtar said the department’s workshop, being manned by 50 qualified technicians, including three foreign diploma holders, was preparing quality limbs while using indigenous laminated material instead of old practice of wooden limbs.
“The weight of a complete leg along with a foot prepared by laminated material is around one-and-a-half kilogramme while that of wooden leg used to be between five and 10 kilogrammes,” he said.
Though the department would fit all artificial legs, arms, hands and fingers to the earthquake victims free of cost, he said the department was providing conservative and modular legs to routine patients at a cost of Rs4,000 and Rs9,000, respectively. While in the open market, he said, these limbs were usually sold at Rs30,000 and Rs100,000, respectively. He said the department was also manufacturing flexible feet indigenously.
After fitting artificial limbs to the quake victims, Dr Akhtar said the department would also train them to use these limbs properly.
Answering a question, he said, the department would surely face pressure of work in the presence of the quake victims. He, however, said as it was a conservative treatment and routine patients could face for some time. At present, he said, the department had 35 patients registered for rehabilitation.
As the earthquake victims were depressed and had no relatives in Lahore, he said, the department would also be requiring some volunteers to elevate the mood of quake victims and help them in getting routine use items in the hospital.
In order to provide comprehensive rehabilitation to spinal injury patients, he said, there was a need to establish spinal rehabilitation centres in the country. He said that he had suggested to the government to establish two such centres in Lahore and Rawalpindi. He claimed that District Nazim Mian Amer Mahmood had promised to provide space in a building on Bund Road for the centre.
“As the earthquake victims fitted with artificial limbs cannot be kept in the hospital, they will be placed in the convalescent wards at the proposed spinal rehabilitation centre,” he said.
Answering a question, Dr Akhtar lamented that some private parties had cropped up and claiming that they could manufacture artificial limbs to exploit the demand of these limbs.
Stating that physical medicine and rehabilitation department of the Mayo Hospital had the only state-of-the-art workshop to manufacture proper artificial limbs, he urged the government to constitute a committee and ensure that ‘quacks’ should not enter this business and exploit situation.
