Mobile Outreach to Rural Vietnam
 There are an estimated 107,000 amputees living in Vietnam. Many lost their limbs in the Vietnam War and during subsequent border conflicts with neighboring China. Landmines and unexploded ordnances have continued to harm children and adults alike, decades after the wars ended. In recent years, work and traffic accidents, as well as disease and untreated infections, have taken the limbs of still more of Vietnamese men, women and children.
 It is estimated that over 500 amputees live in the remote mountains of Northern Vietnam where POF is currently focusing its attention. In this rugged environment, having access to quality prosthetic care is essential to the survival of amputees and their families, many of whom rely on subsistence farming as their mainstay.
Each year, a team of POF-trained Vietnamese prosthetists visits as many rural communities as they can, taking plaster casts of the residual limbs of amputees. These casts are then transported to our prosthetics center in Hanoi, where a custom-made artificial limb is fabricated. The team then returns to the rural communities to fit the amputees with their new artificial limbs. They carry basic tools with them to make any final modifications that may be necessary to improve the fit and comfort of the new limbs.
Learn more about POF rural outreach...
|