“an unusual experiment in medical technology”

Aranyaprathet Journal; For Innocents Scathed by War, a Sort of Self-Help
By BARBARA CROSSETTE, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: June 13, 1988, The New York Times

     This article, published in the New York Times on June 13, 1988, focuses on a program developed in 1979, Operation Handicap International, that helps people in developing countries, such as Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and India, fashion their own medical devices, such as crutches, wheelchairs and prosthetic and orthopedic devices, out of locally available materials, mainly wood, leather and rubber tires.

     In the back of my mind, I always thought that there was a prosthetics company somewhere that was nice enough to donate prosthetics to developing countries, or some kind of a “Lions Club” initiative that allowed people to donate the prosthetics they outgrew to those in need in the Third World. But O.H.I. is even better in that it provides people with jobs, and allows them to create their own limb with care and purpose. Susan Walker, an American who directs O.H.I. in Southeast Asia, said, “And also we believe [the amputees] are best able to understand the difficulties and the needs of the handicapped. We also try to get patients themselves to work on making devices. They have a vested interest in making them look good and fit well.”

     The most interesting lines of the article were in the last paragraph, a quote by Ms. Walker:

“Many people feel that appropriate technology prostheses are primitive, that they are not as good as high-tech or sophisticated-technology devices,” Ms. Walker said. “Something I certainly learned since coming to work with O.H.I.,” she continued, “is that appropriate technology prostheses are based on the same scientific principles, and are just as good as expensive plastic. It's only the material and the look that are different.”

     This quote really struck me because in class we spent a reasonable amount of time discussing how prostheses are getting makeovers to look more and more lifelike on the outside, with translucent plastic coverings that even have nails and knuckles (!). Or how some people opt to get prostheses that have absolutely no function but are just “prettier” than functional prostheses. And while these innovations are very interesting from scientific and technological perspectives, not everyone in need of a limb has the luxury of an aesthetically pleasing prosthetic, functional or not. In developing countries, so many people just need to have a limb they can use so that they can get back to work and get on with their lives, and Operation Handicap International makes this possible in a realistic way in countries that are, sadly, not yet able to take full advantage of the technological developments available to residents of the First World.