ARTIFICIAL LIMBS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 55, 2 September 1943, Page 5

ARTIFICIAL LIMBS

PLAN FOR MANUFACTURE

WAR AMPUTEES' VIEW

Flans for reorganising the manufacture and fitting of artificial limbs were approved by the New Zealand War Amputees' Association conference, now in session at Wellington. Delegates stressed the important part which artificial limbs played in the lives of amputee servicemen, and urged that closer attention than hitherto should be devoted to this phase of returned soldier activity.

In the plan drawn up it was recommended that there should be a. central factory in Wellington, where limb setups should be made and full stocks carried, with subsidiary factories in the provincial centres where the fitting, finishing, and repairs would be carried out. All factories should.possess the equipment to operate the latest overseas methods of manufacture, fitting, and repairs. The scheme, it was stated, would saye a great deal of inconvenience, pain, and expense by reducing travelling and experimentation to a minimum. '

A further recommendation was that all amputees should be examined by an orthopaedic surgeon, together with a limb fitter, immediately on arrival from, overseas, and if further treatment was necessary before a limb could be fitted, the correct procedure should be advised.

The conference viewed with alarm the number of reamputations taking place amongst amputees returning from this'war, and protested against any attempt by any person other than a surgeon with orthopaedic limb fitting experience to order a war amputee to undergo this painful, and in many cases, unnecessary operation.