Clear Path Advisor on the Thai-Burma Border

Clear Path Advisor, Dr. Tao Sheng Kwan-Gett, is visiting one of the Clear Path funded clinics on the Thai-Burma border. He has sent in this report.


After enduring a near-record number of consecutive days of rain in Seattle, we were happy to come to the dusty but sunny town of Mae Sot on the Thai-Burma border and visit the CPI-funded prosthetics workshop at Dr. Cynthia's Mae Tao Clinic. In the bustle of pickup trucks, mopeds, noodle shops and internet cafes, it's easy to forget that only a few miles away inside the jungle mountains of Eastern Burma, landmines are being laid as the Burmese army uproots and displaces ethnic hilltribe villagers away from their resource-rich homelands.

By chance when we arrived, the prosthetics team was taking a hot sheet of thermoplastic out of the oven to drape over a below-knee prosthesis mold. It was a little jarring to see this modern polymer material being used in a clinic where bamboo-roofed teashops abut open-air aluminum and cinderblock buildings. The atmosphere in the workshop was one of hushed concentration as the longyi-clad technicians smoothed and trimmed the plastic over the mold. I felt the same way I did when I watched a 747 fuselage being mated to the wings during a tour of the Boeing plant.

The head of the prosthetics workshop, a solid Karen hilltribe gentleman named Saw Maw Kel (himself an amputee) told me that their workshop has produced more than 300 prostheses in the past year, and over 70 using the new time and cost-saving thermoplastic technology. So far the durability and acceptance of the new legs have been good. The workshop has made some cosmetic and functional changes to adapt the prostheses to local conditions: a more natural looking ankle, a groove to keep the rainy season waters out of the stump, an ankle bushing made of a locally available wood to use when the metal bushings run out.

Who knows how much of this tinkering will turn out to work in the long run, but I felt good to see that they had taken ownership of the technology. Still, they are hungry for more teaching and information exchange. Saw Maw Kel had one request for the CPI team: for the next visit, come and stay a couple of weeks longer!