SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

More than 200 peo­ple await­ing pros­thet­ic limbs are ex­pect­ed to ben­e­fit from the open­ing of the Na­tion­al Pros­thet­ics Cen­tre at Clarke Road, Pe­nal, Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe said yes­ter­day, as he de­scribed the fa­cil­i­ty as a ma­jor mile­stone in strength­en­ing health­care ser­vices in T&T.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in whose con­stituen­cy the cen­tre is lo­cat­ed, said it would not on­ly ben­e­fit lo­cals, but the plan is to ex­pand the ser­vices to Cari­com ter­ri­to­ries.

Speak­ing at the launch of the cen­tre, es­tab­lished through a part­ner­ship in­volv­ing the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia and Jaipur Foot USA, Bo­doe said the fa­cil­i­ty would help ad­dress the grow­ing de­mand for pros­thet­ic ser­vices while im­prov­ing long-term care and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion for am­putees.

The cen­tre was es­tab­lished fol­low­ing a suc­cess­ful ar­ti­fi­cial limb fit­ment camp held in 2025, which ben­e­fit­ed more than 800 cit­i­zens. The ini­tia­tive fol­lowed a vis­it by In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Shri Naren­dra Mo­di. “This per­ma­nent na­tion­al fa­cil­i­ty here in Clark Road, Pe­nal, in the con­stituen­cy of Siparia, un­der the gov­er­nance of the Min­istry of Health, will ad­dress the back­log of per­sons wait­ing for pros­thet­ic limbs, as well as cater to fu­ture needs,” Bo­doe said.

The min­is­ter ex­plained that the fa­cil­i­ty would pro­vide as­sess­ment, fit­ting, and fol­low-up ser­vices while al­so sup­port­ing lo­cal tech­ni­cal train­ing and ca­pac­i­ty build­ing with­in the pub­lic health sys­tem.

“Work is al­ready un­der­way to sup­port ad­di­tion­al pa­tients iden­ti­fied through the ex­ist­ing wait­ing list, which cur­rent­ly in­cludes more than 200 per­sons re­quir­ing pros­thet­ic ser­vices and fol­low-up care,” he said, adding that the first two pa­tients had al­ready been mea­sured for pros­thet­ic limbs.

Through the sup­port of Jaipur Foot USA, he said a spe­cialised pros­thet­ics tech­ni­cian from In­dia would be based in Trinidad and To­ba­go for the next 12 months to as­sist with train­ing and skills trans­fer at the cen­tre. He added that the Gov­ern­ment was al­so look­ing for­ward to the con­tin­ued pro­vi­sion of pros­thet­ic ma­te­ri­als and sup­plies to sup­port the cen­tre’s op­er­a­tions over the com­ing years.

The min­is­ter not­ed that re­search and clin­i­cal da­ta showed T&T faced a se­ri­ous chal­lenge with low­er limb am­pu­ta­tions, av­er­ag­ing be­tween 400 and 500 an­nu­al­ly over the past decade, with di­a­bet­ic foot dis­ease ac­count­ing for the ma­jor­i­ty of cas­es. “Di­a­betes is es­ti­mat­ed to af­fect close to 15 per cent of our adult pop­u­la­tion, with a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of cas­es re­main­ing un­di­ag­nosed. This means that there are close to 150,000 of our cit­i­zens liv­ing with di­a­betes in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Ladies and gen­tle­men, the re­al­i­ty is that rough­ly one in sev­en adults in this coun­try is di­a­bet­ic,” he said.

Thank­ing the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia and Jaipur Foot USA for help­ing to make the ser­vice per­ma­nent, the Prime Min­is­ter de­scribed the cen­tre as “a very trans­for­ma­tive de­vel­op­ment” for mem­bers of the dif­fer­ent­ly-abled com­mu­ni­ty, not­ing that cit­i­zens would now be able to ac­cess pros­thet­ic ser­vices lo­cal­ly and free of charge, with­out the bur­den of trav­el­ling abroad or en­dur­ing high costs and long wait­ing pe­ri­ods.

She not­ed that by restor­ing mo­bil­i­ty and in­de­pen­dence, the cen­tre will help many cit­i­zens re­turn to work to sup­port their fam­i­lies. The Prime Min­is­ter added that the cen­tre had the po­ten­tial to po­si­tion T&T as a re­gion­al hub for spe­cialised re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion ser­vices across the Caribbean. “May I dear say, the plan is, High Com­mis­sion­er, Min­is­ter Jais­hankar and dis­cus­sions go­ing for­ward, Min­is­ter of Health, is that this cen­tre will not just be for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, but we want to reach out fur­ther so we can ser­vice the Cari­com re­gion as well. So, we will de­vel­op this cen­tre and of course, ex­pand it.”

In­di­an Min­is­ter of Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs Dr Sub­rah­manyam Jais­hankar not­ed that the de­mand for pros­thet­ics was more than what was ini­tial­ly catered for last year, but he as­sured that they would “go the ex­tra mile” to en­sure the de­mand is met. “It is our com­mit­ment to­day to en­sure that this cen­tre func­tions to the best of its abil­i­ty and be­yond, and what­ev­er sup­port that is need­ed fur­ther from the gov­ern­ment of In­dia and my min­is­ter, we will sure­ly give.” He al­so spoke about T&T’s oth­er health­care ini­tia­tives with In­dia, in­clud­ing sup­port­ing the haemodial­y­sis ma­chines, two sea am­bu­lances, and mak­ing med­i­cines more af­ford­able and ac­ces­si­ble.