Basra, Iraq, Prosthetics Project Aids Civilians

An 11-year-old boy named Mohammed is run over by an Iraqi military vehicle and left for dead. Today, he can ride a bicycle despite a high-level amputation of his left leg.

There also is Ali. One morning in Basra, Iraq, he stumbled onto a landmine. The blast was so intensive that it propelled him into the air, and he landed on a second mine.

Jameela was a promising young student who lost both legs due to illness. That was the end of her scholastic endeavors. There are no disability facilities in Iraqnot in the schools, not anywhere. She was prohibited from going to school in a wheelchair as she could not make the upstairs classrooms.

Iraq has many such stories. "In fact, over 50,000 such stories, as it is estimated there are 50,000 civilian amputees in Iraq," said Linda A.H. Smythe of the Montgomery Village Rotary Club in Maryland. "And these statistics are old from 2003, [so] we can safely assume the numbers have grown; however, at the present time they are not tracked," she added. "Under the current conditions, it would take 20 to 30 years for the existing prosthetic centers in Iraq to treat these amputees, assuming no new cases."

The Montgomery Village Rotary Club, in partnership with other Rotary Clubs and organizations, has embarked on an all-volunteer project to support the Basra Prosthetics Centre in Iraq. "We are pleased to announce that some $45,000 in prosthetics supplies have been safely received at the Basra clinic [in late April]," said Smythe, who is chairperson and founder of the Basra Prosthetics Project.

"According to Dr. Muslim Al-Asady, director of the Basra clinic, his staffof 21 have until this time not been able for several months to produce prosthetic devices," Smythe said. The Basra clinic is an Iraqi Ministry of Health Centre, which is designated to serve the needs of the civilian amputee population for five regional districts: Basra and four others.

These supplies were purchased from the Al Hussein Society for the Habilitation/Rehabilitation of the Physically Challenged in Amman, Jordan, one which is one of the partnering organizations in the project. "The Al Hussein Society expedited this shipment from its own inventory in recognition of the urgent needs of the Basra clinic," Smythe said.

Help got under way in May 2006, when a medical training mission was carried out in Amman. The Rotarians, with their partners, funded and managed the medical mission, which involved training of the Basra Ministry of Health physicians and prosthetists through treatment of a group of Iraqi civilian amputees. The mission was hosted by the Amman Cosmopolitan Rotary Club, and Physicians for Peace conducted the training at the King Hussein Medical Centre in Amman.

"It was truly a life-changing experience for the Rotarians with this small group of amputees who, one amputee after another, were able to walk, albeit gingerly at first and with difficulty, after, in some cases years in a wheelchair," Smythe said.

The Honorary Patroness of the project is HRH Princess Majda Zeid Raed of Jordan, who has championed the rights of persons with disabilities for many years.

Besides partnering Rotary clubs and Physicians for Peace, other partners and supporting organizations include Hanger Orthopedic Group Inc.; Suburban Hospital, Bethesda, Maryland; Mosaic Foundation; Embassy of Jordan, Washington DC; King Hussein Medical Centre; Amman Cosmopolitan Rotary Club, Amman, Jordan; Ministry of Health, Baghdad, Iraq; U.S. Department of State; International Monetary Fund; Al Hussein Society for the Habilitation/Rehabilitation of the Physically Challenged; and Security International.

Part of the funds raised by the 2007 AbilityTrek Bike Ride, spearheaded by amputee Dan Sheret will be used to benefit the Basra project.

For more information about the Basra Prosthetics Project, visit www.mvrotary.org/Basra_Project/basraproject.htm

For more information about AbilityTrek 2007, visit www.abilitytrek.org