Orthotics and prosthetics team visits Wau

National
Some of the people living with disabilities that were attended to by the NOPS team in Wau this week. – Picture courtesy of Fiona Frank

AN outreach team from the national orthotics and prosthetics (Nops) section of the Department of Health has carried out clinical assessments and plastic casting with clients in Wau, Morobe, currently.
According to Nops technical advisor and team leader Almah Kuambu, this was their first visit to Wau to attend to clients that needed prosthetics and orthotics invention, wheelchairs and walking ads services in Wau.
According to Almah team, their trip was made possible by a local landowner company Nauti Kuembu and Winima (NKW Holdings).
Almah said NKW raised the issue online two years ago and was connected with NOPS. “The delay till now was because of Coronavirus (Covid-19) restrictions, lack of resources such as prosthetics and orthotics components, walking ads and consumables,” she said.
Almah said after the arrangement was made possible through NKW and Motivation Australia, the team was able to make it to Wau via Lae last week.
The team started seeing their clients since June 19.
“Normally, we conduct our outreach programme with the aid of a nearby health post, but because Wau health centre is still closed, the clinical assessments and plaster casting were done at
NKW Holdings premises,” Almah said.
She said that the NOPS outreach programme was a short term plan and done in two phases as they did not know who was out there and the kind of Nops service the people would need.
Phase one was carrying out clinical assessments and performing plastic casting, discussing with partners and relevant government authorities for a long-term plan approach while phase two, Nops provided fitting, made adjustments and delivered the final assistive product to the clients.
Almah said the team was to complete its work today .