Patients rights

It is a rampant thing from my years of experience in the field especially at the centre in Lagos, that a prosthesis or orthosis is fabricated for a patient and the patient just stands up, walks twice or thrice with the appliance and says thank you to the service provider and off he or she goes with a wobbling and very far from normal gait that is expected.

The ignorance of amputees and people with musculoskeletal deformities as to optimum gait is to the advantage of the service provider who takes solace in this and hence fabricates a below par appliance.

Patients should acquaint themselves with the trend in prosthetics and orthotics to be able to challenge the functionability, cosmesis and durability of the appliance being made for them. It is not a slap on the service provider if the patient queries the above mentioned but it is to show and tell the provider to either buckle up his or her shoes or go for further studies which would enlighten him or her more..

In the developed countries, clients do come together to form associations like Amputee forum, Wheelchair users association etc; this is a good concept that can be absorbed by the disability population of Nigeria as well.
There are very few at the moment that are known for spinal cord clients and disabled population in general but smaller specific ones that can focus on a special group should be looked into e.g. for amputees.

When going for a prosthesis or orthosis, get yourself acquainted to what the appliance should offer and you are a step closer to getting an appliance that will offer you the three qualities mentioned earlier which are functionability, cosmesis and durability.