New Royal initiative launched to address Gaza amputee crisis

AMMAN — Under directives from His Majesty King Abdullah, the Royal Medical Services launched the "Mobile Amputees Support Unit" to address the amputee crisis in the war-torn Gaza Strip.

Called the "restoration of hope", the initiative, launched during a press conference on Monday at the King Hussein Medical City, is the first of its kind in the Kingdom and has come as response to increasing amputee crisis in Gaza, where thousands of amputations have been reported.

Military doctors at the news conference said that injuries caused by war in Gaza have reached "horrifying" levels with thousands of amputations among civilians, especially children.

The number of amputees in Gaza has surpassed 15,000, the doctors said, adding the idea behind establishing the mobile unit is to provide on-site treatment to injured Gaza, who have no place to go to have their wounds healed up. 

 Giving a press briefing at the Royal Rehabilitation Centre, Royal Medical Services doctors said that two well-equipped mobile units will be assembled under the initiative and sent to Gaza, to be operated by specialised medics from the two Jordanian field hospitals in the Strip. 

A prosthetic process usually take three to four months to complete, but with these mobile centres the process will be way a lot quicker, taking no more than one hour, the doctors said. 

The doctors from the Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army (JAF) explained that His Majesty has issued directives to find solution to the time-consuming prosthetic process to meet the urgency of the situation in Gaza.

Medical team from the Royal Rehabilitation Centre has received training on the new "quick" prosthetic fitting and has successfully carried out fitting for a triple amputee child from Gaza. "The child was able to walk the same day."

The doctors said that a limb fitting procedure would cost $1,400 but the  Jordan Hashemite Charity Organisation would directly buy the artificial limb prostheses from manufactures and supply them to the mobile units operating in Gaza.