Appeal for help with shipping costs for artificial limbs from New Zealand
The gifted modular building for the National Referral Hospital (NRH) which I have so often written about during its conversion into a replacement Rehabilitation Workshop for the manufacture and custom fitting of below the knee artificial limbs for the many hundreds of patients of the NRH that lost a leg following surgery after contracting diabetes has been completed.
The urgent task is now to give artificial limbs to those awaiting them.
The means of doing so is limited by the fact the NRH has only one technician skilled in artificial limb manufacture as two former skilled technicians that had been trained in India were laid off when the old workshop was demolished after succumbing to termite and white ant infestation.
To try and overcome the problem, I have sought help from my partner charity, ‘Take My Hands’ in Auckland and it has been agreed that TMH is willing to send pre-made artificial limbs to the NRH to speed up the process of custom fitting them to awaiting patients giving them back the independence they have long needed and hitherto been dependant on crutches for mobility.
To get sufficient artificial limbs from New Zealand my partner in Auckland is willing to try and get a shipping company there to offer a ‘part-load’ arrangement to freight the artificial limbs to the NRH as soon as possible.
I write this letter therefore by way of an appeal for any business house, organization, international agency, or diplomatic partner of the Solomon Islands to offer to pay the shipping costs for the artificial limbs once my partner can confirm the costs.
After waiting for many years for an artificial or prosthetic limb the several hundred limbless former patients of the NRH are deserving of support and the NRH is not yet able to assist them in the short or medium term without the help from my partner overseas.
Will you please help? If so I can be contacted via the link on my website, or by email – nkhwazi2002@yahoo.com.
Thank you all.
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
