Every year a select team of professional prosthetists and orthotists and final-year students of the University of Strathclyde visit Mukti Clinic in Chennai to work with the clinic staff and assist with treatment. This year, I had the privilege to be chosen.
The Mukti Project is organised by a team of students and staff from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Strathclyde who work jointly with Mukti Clinic. The clinic provides amputees and those with polio the freedom to walk, work and be independent. Treatment is free and the clinic treats around 30 patients each day.
I had been involved in various fundraising events for our trip throughout the year such as selling t-shirts and hoodies, raffles and organising a ceilidh in aid of Mukti.
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We were welcomed on the first morning by the large Mukti team who were extremely hospitable. I noticed that there was an overlap between technicians and clinicians within the centre as many of the staff treat the patients as well as manufacture the limbs at the workshop. All the technical skills we learnt on placement in the U.K. were put to use quickly in the workshop from the very first day. Many patients travel a long distance to visit the clinic for prosthetic/orthotic provision and so devices are manufactured and fitted on the same day. This is ideal for patients but also means a demanding work schedule for the technicians.
The visit was a great learning experience about how the centre prescribes cost-effective prostheses which are manufactured from polyurethane drainpipe material. This was a brand new concept to me, compared to the socket design used in the U.K. The material was thick and not able to be as closely contoured to the modified plaster model as would be preferable. Therefore, plaster modification is carried out in an aggressive manner in order to gain a tight fit around the patient’s stump. This technique is followed also due to the socket being open-ended.
The orthotics in the centre is mainly focused on providing knee-ankle-foot orthoses (KAFO) to a vast number of patients. The patients attending the orthotic clinic greatly rely on their KAFO to walk, and independence is incredibly important in order to work and support their families. While at the clinic, we did assess some children who required ankle-foot orthosis (AFO) provision. There were some limitations within the workshop to be able to manufacture the AFOs from hand casts. However, the technicians helped us make the most of the facilities and the AFOs were able to be fitted successfully to the children.
It was clear to me how grateful each patient was to be provided with a prosthesis or orthosis as it provided them with a vital lifeline. I had the pleasure of being able to cast, manufacture and fit prosthesis to many patients during our time in Chennai and the work was incredibly worthwhile as many of these patients were carried in by family members in the morning and were able to walk out of clinic the very same day.
The dedication and passion from everyone at Mukti was admirable and made our time in the centre thoroughly enjoyable. I will always look back on this experience with admiration for the work that continues to happen at Mukti.
The author is a final-year student of B.Sc. Prosthetics and Orthotics at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.