3-D printing
Amputees, wounded in Middle East, helped by new prosthetics
AMMAN — Iraqi soldier Abdullah lost his left hand fighting the Islamic State group but now he has a prosthetic one — thanks to a 3-D printing lab in Jordan.
Abdullah was wounded in a mine blast as Iraqi forces battled to oust the extremists from Iraq’s second city Mosul last year. His right hand was also seriously wounded.
The 22-year-old, who asked not to use his real name, is one of a group of Iraqi, Syrian and Yemeni amputees to benefit from a 3-D-printing clinic at a hospital run by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, or MSF.
“It’s not easy to replace a hand, but at least the device gives me some autonomy and means I don’t rely too much on my brother to eat,” he said.
Wearing jeans and a darkgreen shirt, he said he had been transferred from Mosul to a hospital in the Iraqi Kurdish regional capital Arbil before heading to Jordan.
“Now I feel better,” he said. “I hope I can heal my right hand too.”
The 3-D printing technique allows the team to create simple upper limbs without moving parts, slashing the costs of manufacturing advanced, custom-made prosthetic limbs, according to MSF.
The MSF Foundation, a wing of the charity dedicated to research and development, set up a prosthetics production center in Jordan’s Irbid in June.
A team of medics and technicians use the technique to help people born with genetic deformations as well as war wounded from across the region.
Doctors start by taking photos and measurements and sending them to the laboratory in Irbid, 100 kilometers north of Amman.
The data is entered into a system that designers use to create a virtual model of the limb, which is then printed and sent to MSF’s al-Mowasah hospital in Amman for fitting.
Several organizations have developed 3-D printing for amputees in recent years, but MSF says its project is a first in the Middle East.
Project coordinator Pierre Moreau said it had treated 15 Syrians, Iraqis, Yemenis, Palestinians and Jordanians since its launch.
“We chose Jordan because we have one of the biggest hospitals and most advanced, and it is a stable place in the middle of a war region so we have access to patients from Syria, Iraq and Yemen,” he said.
It has also benefitted people born with deformities, such as 7-year-old Palestinian refugee Asil Abu Ayada from the Gaza camp northwest of Amman, who was born without a right hand.
With her new prosthetic hand, she can now go to a normal school and even draw.
The 3-D devices range in cost from $20 and $50 — a fraction of the cost of conventional prosthetic devices.
“You can design something that can suit this patient and is very specific to the activity of the patient,” Moreau said.