Lucian Tabacaru, Sam Nichols, and Jack Powell with lily, her mum Julie and Children First in-country partner Madlen
In collaboration and with funding from Children First Foundation, Interplast provided specialist care for children living with limb differences and amputations.
Interplast volunteer Sam Nichols and Children First representative Jack Powell recently travelled to Vanuatu to provide specialist prosthetics and orthotics care to 6 young patients.
In Vanuatu, there are currently no practising prosthetists or orthotists.
This means children and families can face significant barriers accessing the specialised care and support they need. But thanks to your support, local healthcare teams are gaining the knowledge and skills to help bridge that gap.
Sam and Jack with Masel, aged 6, after being fitted with prosthetic leg
During the visit, Children First referred six paediatric patients to be assessed, including children living with congenital limb deficiencies and acquired amputations.
Sam and Jack worked closely with each child and their family, providing specialist assessments and recommendations to support mobility, independence and quality of life.
Importantly, your support helped individual patients, while strengthening local capacity by providing practical education and mentoring to Vanuatu’s physiotherapy team.
Training covered prosthetic use, residual limb care, skin monitoring, expected functional outcomes and ongoing patient management.
The local physiotherapists were highly engaged throughout the program and expressed strong enthusiasm to apply their new knowledge in their daily practice.
By supporting programs like this, you are helping children access specialist care while building local expertise that will benefit many more families in the years ahead.
Thank you for helping children in Vanuatu move towards a more independent future.
Garisha, Lengkon and Masel excited, taking their first steps
Acknowledgements
The success of this P&O activity was made possible through the partnership and funding with Children First Foundation.
