Could support and funding be made available to manufacture crutches locally?
I have often written about the plight of those patients of the National Referral Hospital (NRH) that have undergone lower limb surgery and left to cope with their daily lives with a missing leg.
Only last week I raised the subject once again knowing there are patients in the NRH that have had a leg amputated and are without crutches.
Crutches are in short supply at the NRH and many in the community desperate for a mobility aid.
Solomon Islanders are talented craftsmen and resourceful and it occurs to me that it would be possible to make wooden crutches simply and economically as a down streaming enterprise if the idea could be encouraged.
Perhaps some NGO or UN affiliated organization could agree to fund such work to fulfill the needs of the NRH and those still dependent on walking aids.
A wood craftsman could also earn an income from making simple wooden crutches on the basis of the examples I have illustrated.
I have been in touch with my partner charity in New Zealand, ‘Take My Hands’ to find out what might be done to supply crutches to the NRH but the collection of crutches from donors in New Zealand could take some time and when sufficient numbers could be acquired there would then need to be donor funds needed to ship a container, or part container, with the crutches.
The short to medium remedy would seem to suggest that crutches be made locally with suitable funding support on the basis of what I have suggested.
I very much hope my suggestion could be taken up.
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
