Reference :
V-P-NP-E-00234
Date :
2010
Caption :
Pokhara, Green Pastures Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre. A girl practices walking with her prosthesis.
Confidentiality level :
public
Publication restrictions :
publication without restrictions
Description :
ICRC website, feature, 24.06.2011
Excerpt:
“I landed with a thud”
Eleven-year-old Tulasi always enjoyed playing outside with her friends. One day, chasing after a goat, she followed it through the perimeter fence of an army barracks. "There was a huge blast that threw me high up into the air through the trees," she says, raising her little hands to gesture before adding, "I landed with a thud on the ground." She had stepped on a landmine that exploded. She vaguely remembers her brother carrying her to the nearest hospital about two hours away from their village in Kapilvastu district in the rural western part of Nepal.
Tulasi spent four months in hospital. Her left leg was seriously injured and the doctors had to amputate. She underwent four further operations to save her right leg. Whilst in hospital, Tulasi recalls the anguish that she underwent from losing her leg. She recounts strange dreams in which her leg would start growing, the wound would heal, the scar would vanish and she would be able to walk again.
Before the accident Tulasi was an enthusiastic student and playful girl. Afterwards she was restricted to staying indoors and had difficulty walking with crutches and moving without help. The simple act of stepping on a landmine had changed her life, seemingly irreparably.
Walking again
Now 15, Tulasi is walking again thanks to a prosthetic limb which was fitted three years ago at Green Pastures Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre in Pokhara. Once again, Tulasi can ride a bicycle and play outside with her friends. The Green Pastures Hospital provides physical rehabilitation services for people who have lost limbs or injured spinal cords, enabling them to resume their lives and regain their independence to work and reintegrate into family and community activities.
The ICRC, in cooperation with the International Nepal Fellowship, started supporting the Green Pastures Hospital in 2004. The hospital’s physical rehabilitation centre receives support in the form of training, financial assistance, supplies, equipment and the materials necessary for fabricating artificial limbs.
Tulasi is one of more than 150 conflict-related victims with irreversible disability who will need follow-up services throughout their lives. Like other patients, her prosthetic limb requires regular adjustment and needs replacing every three years as she grows. To assist people like Tulasi, the ICRC works closely with the NRCS’s District Chapters, following up on registered patients and identifying those with disabilities and in need of physical rehabilitation.
Original material :
digital
Resolution :
2245x2841
Orientation :
portrait
Colour/B&W :
black and white
