Through a joint project of THE SOUTH AFRICAN RED C...

Through a joint project of THE SOUTH AFRICAN RED CROSS AIR MERCY SERVICES and THE SOUTH AFRICAN DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH or HEALTH KWAZULU-NATAL, THE SOUTH AFRICAN RED CROSS AIR MERCY SERVICES (flying doctor service) flies orthopaedic technicians to the outlying and remote SOUTH AFRICAN GOVERNMENT HEALTH SERVICES orthopaedic/physiotherapy clinics at government hospitals in the far northern KwaZulu-Natal region of South Africa. Patients walk, wheel and make their way with crutches as they return home from the clinic. This access to expert orthopaedic care for the out patients at the MANGUZI, MOSFOLD and BETHESDA GOVERNMENT HOSPITALS has meant access to the special care needed by those who from birth, illness and or physical trauma are left with a very real need for orthopaedic care and or prosthetic assistance. The hills, fields and plains of far northern kwazulu-natal region are isolated, and the infrastructure is not good. The work carried out in these clinics provides the walkers, irons and prosthetics that makes a change to those who with out this service would literally be left to stumble on with their lives in a place that is less then conducive to those with less then a perfect body. The clinics that this co-operation facilitates has helped children to walk upright, corrected small defects for others and allowed a subsistence farmer the ability to manage the planting of her personal field of beans and the restored the pride to another to father and provide for his family once again. IMAGES PRODUCED IN THE MANGUZI, MOSFOLD AND BETHESDA GOVERNMENT HOSPITALS AND SURROUNDS OF THE NORTHERN KWAZULU-NATAL REGION OF SOUTH AFRICA. FEBRUARY/APRIL 2009. PHOTOS/JOHN ROBINSON