Aiding the world´s disabled - online

Angola 2008: Miss Landmine is looking forward to getting her first artificial leg, with the help of Rune Nilsen from the Norwegian organisation Sophies Minde. (Photo: Rune Nilsen)

In a shack in the Angolan countryside, Miss Landmine 2008 is having a cast made on her leg stump. The Norwegian orthopaedics engineer Rune Nilsen then uses the cast to make her very first prosthesis.

"But we cannot make Norwegian prosthesis to everyone who needs it. The solution is to help educate more orthopaedic engineers locally", he says.

Critical shortage of orthopaedic engineers

Together with the Norwegian centre for integrated care and telemedicine (NST), as well as the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics (ISPO), he is about to get started on a large project, where they aim at educating more orthopaedic engineers.

On a world scale, there is a huge shortage on workers with skills within this field.

NST is contributing to the project with their Net-based education group, which has great experience from work with health education on the net.

"Even though this project is directed towards countries in the south, these courses might be of use for engineers throughout the world. ISPO´s quality standards are very high, so it is exiting to be a part of this", says Line Lindstad, head of the advisory department at NST.

Estimates shows that there are about 650 million disabled people in the world today, and the number is increasing. 200 million of them are children, and some 80 percent live in poor countries in the south. Many of them need prosthesis or other orthopaedic tools.

Tromsø 2009: Founder of ISPO, Sepp Heim, and NST´s Kirsten Eriksen are about to start a comprehensive project. – We chose NST as collaborator because of their broad experience in eLearning, Heim says. Photo: Elisabeth Jakobsen, NST.

Acknowledged but disregarded

Only a few years ago, disabled people in many parts of the world were society's outcasts. This has changed – at least on a government level. Sepp Heim, founder and former president of the ISPO, describes a world where the rights of the disabled, to a great extent, are included in the countries laws and guidelines.

"But there are still huge challenges when it comes to the level of education and the access to technical aids", he says.

This is where eLearning, or net-based education, can make a difference.

"eLearning is a good and suitable tool to increase the quality of the work that is done out in the field", he says.

Useful and fun

Head of net-based education, Kirsten Eriksen, is looking forward to get started on a line of work where she has wanted to contribute for a long time.

"We experience the work with this project as very interesting and important, as we now can support the worldwide education of orthopaedic engineers", she says.

What will be the greatest challenge?

"To standardize an education with high quality, that can be successfully used despite of cultural and organisational differences between all the countries and continents, where it is to be put into use."

Contact information

For more information on the project, please contact Kirsten Eriksen, phone number +47 913 49 652, e-mail kirsten.eriksen@telemed.no