Jaipur Limb & Foot Project

Thousands of Vietnamese civilians as well as army veterans had lost one or both legs as the result of treading on unexploded anti–personnel mines or fragmentation “bomblets” of cluster bomb units. Limbs were also lost by accident at work or on road/rail, and many older lepers had also lost parts of their lower limbs. We had heard of a limb developed by an orthopaedic surgeon in Jaipur (and hence called the Jaipur limb) which allowed amputees to walk with or without shoes, on dry land or flooded paddy field, to sit cross legged, to top squat, to ride a bicycle or even climb a tree. It was quickly made to measure, very durable, required no expensive machinery of imported materials and was remarkably cheap. The first Jaipur Centre opened at Tam Diep, in Ninh Binh Province, in a small orthopaedic hospital supplying wooden legs to war veterans in November 1994, and the limb proved very popular. A second centre opened in 1998 in Ky Anh, Ha Tinh province, just down the road from the British Friendship Hospital. Over £100,000 was subscribed and £39,000 was in a high interest account awaiting further developments, but to our great sorrow, because of a number of apparently insuperable difficulties, the project had to be discontinued in 2000.

However, we learned of a pioneering clinic for children with congenital abnormalities (mostly resulting from parental exposure to toxic chemicals such as Agent Orange), the Morning Star centre, which was about to be set up in Hanoi, and which required diagnostic equipment for hearing, sight and neurological impairment. We were able to fund all these with the money set aside for the limb project.