Project Medishare, an effort based out of the University of Miami (UM), Florida, has shipped 500 prosthetic legs to Haiti to help earthquake survivors with amputations. The limbs are variously sized for men, women, and children, and all are a passable dark brown for a nation of people with widely various skin tones. Assembled by amputees in India, the limbs are made of a hard plastic designed to withstand tropical heat and rainy seasons, and have sculpted feet with a cleft between the toes to accommodate flip-flop wear. Medishare is currently sending only legs, which are considered more fundamental to survival than arms.
On April 2, Project Medishare physicians travelled to Port-au-Prince to meet amputee patients and seek a location in which to open an O&P clinic in the city. According to the Miami Herald, Robert Gailey, PhD, Medishare’s rehabilitation coordinator, stated that the group hopes to initially help 1,800 earthquake survivors to walk, and eventually to fill the clinic’s technician roster with fully trained Haitian earthquake survivors.
“We have never seen a natural disaster of this type in which so many limbs were lost,” Gailey was quoted as saying. The associate professor at UM’s Miller School of Medicine added, “Almost immediately, we knew the prosthetic community had to be mobilized to join this cause.”
The Herald also stated that Adam Finnieston, CPO, of Arthur Finnieston Inc., Miami, is working with Gailey
to try to develop a system in which Haitian technicians can scan patients with a portable scanner, transmit the scan files to a CAD/CAM-based factory in Haiti, and develop custom prosthetic sockets without the assistance of a prosthetist.
“If we teach them to care for themselves,” Gailey was quoted as saying, “they can become an independent nation.”
