‘Support amputees get prosthesis’
The Deputy Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Mrs Gloria Quansah Asare, has called for support from corporate bodies and individuals to assist the GHS and the National Prosthetics and Orthotics Centre (NPOC) to cater for amputees.
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“We at the NPOC of the GHS believe that amputations should not prevent people, especially children, from returning to their normal life,” she said.
Limb fitting centre
Mrs Quansah Asare was speaking at a ceremony to present some beneficiaries of the Sponsor a Limb, Make Someone Stand with Hope project, to their sponsor in Accra.
The NPOC was established to provide physical rehabilitation services to the physically challenged population, while the Sponsor a Limb, Make Someone Stand with Hope project, was introduced to enable patients to have access to prosthetic services.
The Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) sponsored six beneficiaries between the ages of one and 18 years to have prosthetics at the cost of GH¢10,000, after their legs had been amputated.
Increasing demand
Mrs Quansah Asare said the number of people in need of the services of the NPOC, kept increasing as a result of the high rate of road traffic accidents, domestic and agricultural accidents as well as diabetes.
“The materials used for making orthotic and prosthetics devices had become more advanced and expensive, therefore, patients cannot patronise the service. This has made it expensive for patients to purchase such services,” she added.
She said although the American non-governmental organisation, Standing with Hope, aided the Accra centre with materials and technical support each year to lower the cost of prosthetic services to patients, some patients could still not afford the subsidised services, therefore, the need for more support.
A representative of SSNIT, Mr Emmanuel Pessy of the Corporate Affairs Unit, indicated that supporting the beneficiaries to enable them to have prosthetics was in line with the company’s corporate social responsibility.
One of the beneficiaries, Miss Tracy Obeng, a student, thanked the GHS and SSNIT for their support.
“We are very grateful to the GHS, the NPOC and SSNIT for supporting us through a successful operation. We are very much appreciative of the gesture,” she said.