Collateral damage: The human cost of conflict
Militancy in the northwest has sharply increased the number of people with disabilities over the years.
PESHAWAR:
The human cost of conflict is apparent in the northwest, where the number of people with disabilities has increased sharply over the years.
At the Pakistan Institute of Prosthetic and Orthotic Sciences (PIPOS) in Hayatabad here, many people are seen missing a limb, while others are missing both. Many of these people are victims of the ongoing militancy and have come to get artificial limbs.
There is a periodic increase in the number of people with disabilities over the years due to bomb blasts and the spread of militancy in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).
The number of patients registered at this centre was 344 in 2007 and increased to 584 in 2008. There was a sharp increase in 2009 as the number of patients increased to 2,351. In October 2010, the centre served 2,539 people. An official requesting anonymity said one in three people is disabled because of the ongoing militancy.
In one room, physiotherapists and prosthetic technicians are trying to fit artificial limbs for an Afghan teenager, Baz Mohammad, who lost both legs in a gunfire incident a few months ago.
Mohammad said he was shot at night by unidentified people and shifted to Peshawar from Afghanistan. “I was advised to come to this hospital for free treatment,” Mohammad said. His uncle, Razaq Khan said that his wounds were infected due to lack of proper health facilities back home.
Shahzad Khan from Kurram Agency lost his leg in helicopter shelling almost a year back. “I was a driver and not a Talib,” he said, adding that he was trying to adjust with his prosthetics at the gym.
Treatment for his leg cost him around Rs300,000. “I cannot work any longer. When I see normal people I think I’ll never be like them again,” Khan said, adding, “I get more love from society and family now than I did before.”
Neelum Abdullah, prosthetics and orthotics practitioner at the centre, said it is open for any amputee from Fata and K-P and is free of cost. Neelum said that a fresh amputee takes at least two weeks to a month in adjusting with his prosthesis, while an old user takes three days to a week.
Field officer Fazal Mohammad said the ICRC made an agreement with PIPOS in 2004 to treat amputees from the insurgency-hit areas and was extended following the October 2005 earthquake. In 2009, treatment was made free for patients from K-P and Fata, he said, adding that an artificial limb for a leg amputated beneath the knee costs Rs26,000.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 3rd, 2010.
The human cost of conflict is apparent in the northwest, where the number of people with disabilities has increased sharply over the years.
At the Pakistan Institute of Prosthetic and Orthotic Sciences (PIPOS) in Hayatabad here, many people are seen missing a limb, while others are missing both. Many of these people are victims of the ongoing militancy and have come to get artificial limbs.
There is a periodic increase in the number of people with disabilities over the years due to bomb blasts and the spread of militancy in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).
The number of patients registered at this centre was 344 in 2007 and increased to 584 in 2008. There was a sharp increase in 2009 as the number of patients increased to 2,351. In October 2010, the centre served 2,539 people. An official requesting anonymity said one in three people is disabled because of the ongoing militancy.
In one room, physiotherapists and prosthetic technicians are trying to fit artificial limbs for an Afghan teenager, Baz Mohammad, who lost both legs in a gunfire incident a few months ago.
Mohammad said he was shot at night by unidentified people and shifted to Peshawar from Afghanistan. “I was advised to come to this hospital for free treatment,” Mohammad said. His uncle, Razaq Khan said that his wounds were infected due to lack of proper health facilities back home.
Shahzad Khan from Kurram Agency lost his leg in helicopter shelling almost a year back. “I was a driver and not a Talib,” he said, adding that he was trying to adjust with his prosthetics at the gym.
Treatment for his leg cost him around Rs300,000. “I cannot work any longer. When I see normal people I think I’ll never be like them again,” Khan said, adding, “I get more love from society and family now than I did before.”
Neelum Abdullah, prosthetics and orthotics practitioner at the centre, said it is open for any amputee from Fata and K-P and is free of cost. Neelum said that a fresh amputee takes at least two weeks to a month in adjusting with his prosthesis, while an old user takes three days to a week.
Field officer Fazal Mohammad said the ICRC made an agreement with PIPOS in 2004 to treat amputees from the insurgency-hit areas and was extended following the October 2005 earthquake. In 2009, treatment was made free for patients from K-P and Fata, he said, adding that an artificial limb for a leg amputated beneath the knee costs Rs26,000.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 3rd, 2010.