The Prosthetic and Orthotic Centre in Vavuniya, Sri Lanka, was opened in November 2010 as a partnership between the Cambodia Trust, The Nippon Foundation and the Ministry of Health.
We currently have 8 staff members in our centre to allow the provision of prostheses and orthoses in Vavuniya General Hospital.
Manager 1
Prosthetist /Orthotist 2
Reception 1
Store Keeper 1
Technician 3
As part of our commitment to equal opportunities and rights for persons with disabilities we are glad to employ people with disabilities in our centre wherever possible. Five of these eight staff members have a disability. All three technicians are wheelchair users. Our receptionist is also a wheelchair user and our store keeper is an amputee. We feel our staff are a good example to our patients who often find gaining employment difficult.
For our three technicians we had to make some adjustments and considerations for wheelchair use in our workshop. Although it is was designed to be big enough for wheelchair access we found it was not big enough to get multiple wheelchairs moving around freely. Our solution was to move some of the machinery outside of the workshop to give more space. We moved the vacuum pump, dust extractors and air compressor to a building outside of the main workshop. We also removed some partition walls to make doorways wider (wide enough for 2 wheelchairs to pass not just one).
We found that different tasks could be performed best at a range of heights so our workbenches vary in height. Rather than having their own workbench our technicians share their benches and use the most appropriate one for the job they are doing.
In the toilets we have made several changes. Originally overhead bars were fitted to help transfers-however after discussion with staff we found an easier system involving an overhead rail with foldable side rails as well.
Our technicians received training at the school in Ragama from experienced technicians. However as they have come across some tasks they have had more difficulties. An example of this is that it is very difficult to bend metal side bars to be used in a KAFO when sitting in a wheelchair. We sent a technical trainer to Vavuniya to help overcome this specific problem. It was easy for him to see the difficulty of gaining the required leverage for bending the aluminium bars when we made him also sit in a wheelchair to do the instruction. Through this they were able to work collaboratively to come up with an altered technique for bending from a sitting position rather than standing as all other technicians are taught.
We still have some obstacles that we are currently working on. It is currently impossible for the wheelchair users to drape the casts. This involves carrying sheets of molten plastic from the oven where they are heated to the plaster casts on vacuum points. They cannot carry the plastic as they need to use their hands to propel themselves. The molten plastic is too hot to put on their knees. We are working on the idea of getting some sort of trolley or tray covered in Teflon onto which they could place the plastic while they move the wheelchair over to the cast.
Through flexibility in workshop set-up and discussion with our staff we have been able to successfully employ a high proportion of people with disabilities in Vavuniya.
