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On 25th October 2009 Colin Macfarlane was special guest at a CRP seminar on treating club feet. This is an edited version of his address.
Let me share with you the progress of Walk for Life:
Together with Lamb Hospital we selected Khulna Division, with a base in Jessore, to start. By early 2010 we will have a working clinic in every district. Khulna Division has 10% of the population of Bangladesh. We will then move to the next division.
Our philosophy is to move towards sustainability. We are doing this by working alongside the government health system.
Professor Haque has issued a government order to all civil surgeons in Khulna Division to fully co operate with the program. The clinics we are establishing are predominantly in government hospitals.
WFL provides training and 2 trained physiotherapists to work alongside government employees. We provide braces at no cost, together with plaster and accessories.
We provide the administration.
For the first year we are working on a budget of $US100 000 – shared by POF in Seattle and the Glencoe Foundation in Australia.
The budget allows for the administration, training, and establishment of clinics, and for 400-500 children to be treated in our first year. At this stage there is no charge to the parents.
After 5 months we are on track.
We have had the first two of our training clinics of the 5 planned in the first year. Our trainers are from Uganda, UK and Australia
Our philosophy is to be flexible, and realistic: we will undoubtedly make changes along the way.
Our management is outside the government:
Am very lucky to have Mr Zakirul Haque as country director and Mr Jahangir Alum as country coordinator – a few weeks ago I called Jahangir from overseas he said:
"There is so much to do: we are putting our heart and soul into this project" That is what we need to grow Ponseti in Bangladesh: Energy and Passion.
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