THE BIONIC GRAN
Brave Marguerite becomes first NHS patient to get a hi-tech robotic hand
A GRAN has become the first NHS patient to be given a bionic hand – and she’s looking forward to celebrating by eating a burger.
Marguerite Henderson, 57, lost both her hands and feet in February 2018 after a paper cut became infected and she was struck down by sepsis.
Doctors managed to save part of her right hand and the brave former seamstress was determined to use it. She said: “I can type, sew, phone people, do my own hair, use my wheelchair and lots more. It’s not the life I would have chosen but I owe my life to the NHS.”
But now her new hi-tech hand giving her even more independence.
The grandmother of three said: “It will mean very simple things like cutting is my own food, eating different things, feeling comfortable about eating out.
“I can’t wait to eat a burger, which of course you need two hands for.”
The hand can be programmed by an iPad and fires muscles in her forearm, triggering movements. German firm
Ottobock, who made the hand, instructed her on how to use it on a Zoom call.
Marguerite, of Fife, Scotland, said of staff at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow, who carried out her op: “Everyone has been amazing.”
NHS senior prosthetist Vincent MacEachen said: “With practice she can produce several movements – open, close, rotate the wrist left and right and position the thumb for different grasps.”