$40 ‘Jaipur Foot’ Gets Amputees Back on Their Feet
Last updated 3/1/2010 9:31:08 AM
$40 Jaipur Foot Gets Amputees Back on Their Feet
"I told my doctor, just kill me. Every time I saw my bandaged stump, I did not want to live," said 48-year-old Bhoopnarayan Jha, who used to cycle 20 km (about 12 miles) to work every day and lost his foot in an accident. But I was up on my feet in an hour after strapping on the foot and in one month's time I could run and catch a bus."
The foot piece is made from rubber, the variety used in car tires, and is available in standard shoe sizes.
The core of the foot is made from a cheap local variety of wood that is used for packing cases. The light, water-proof socket that cradles the stump is made from a high density polyethylene, the component of common water tanks.
The Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti organization make the Jaipur Foot, called after the capital city of Rajastan, where the prosthetic feet and legs are made.
"It costs us around 1,750 rupees ($38) to make a Jaipur Foot for below-knee amputees and about 2,200 rupees ($48) for those that have had amputations above the knee," says V R Mehta, one of the directors of the Samiti organization. "But we give it free to all patients irrespective of their financial status." They have given a new lease of life to people who normally could never afford a prosthesis.
The Samiti has fitted over a million people around the world since its inception in 1975, also helping land mine victims from Kashmir and those who lost limbs in the 2001 Gujarat earthquake.
The organization also gets orders from war-ravaged countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as quake-stricken Haiti, which are struggling with a large disabled population.
From the time a patient walks in and is examined by professionals, it takes less than a day to manufacture a Jaipur Foot. Workers sit in open sheds around a table and work with basic machinery as amputees mill around watching them make their prosthetics from scratch.
"A patient comes in the morning and can walk out on his own two feet by evening, a thing unimaginable in any part of the Western world. He can run or climb trees in a month's time if he wants to," Mehta said.
The foot is customized to fit the needs of people from all professions.
Most amputees from far-flung rural areas in India are usually farmers who squat for hours in knee-deep muddy water in paddy fields so the organization devised a light, flexible and water-proof prosthetic that would allow them to carry on with their activities.
The organization is now in talks with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to upgrade its technology and to provide funding, but remains true to its mission of providing quick, quality prosthetics to the poor, free of charge.
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