O&P ORGANIZATIONS
The foundation stone for AFIRM was laid in 1991 by then Chief of the Army Staff, General Asif Nawaz. The construction work on this huge project was rather slow. Although a small makeshift OPD unit started functioning in 1995, the AFIRM OPD block was inaugurated in 2001 and the fully functional Indoor department started functioning in March 2005.
AFIRM is at present a 100-bed tertiary care rehabilitation institute, the largest in Southeast Asia located in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Employing a multidisciplinary team approach, it provides comprehensive rehabilitation services to patients with SCI, amputations, stroke, pediatric disabilities, and musculoskeletal and orthopedic disorders.
It has separate gymnasiums for men and women (for cultural reasons) with the latest exercise equipment including electronic treadmills and a partial body weight supported gait training system. The diagnostic department provides services of electrodiagnostic (Nerve conduction studies, electromyography, Visual evoked potentials), urodynamic evaluation, DEXA scan (for osteoporosis), and Body Mass Index assessment. The affiliated orthopedic technology workshop manufactures spinal and upper- and lower-limb orthoses and splints. It also provides the amputees with the latest modular prosthesis. (Figures 1 and 2) The spinal rehabilitation unit of AFIRM is at present the largest and best equipped in the country with electronic turning and tilting beds, Mechanical Insufflator and Exsufflator, Pneumatic compression device, etc. (Fig 3) Two dedicated clinics for Stroke and Pediatric Rehabilitation are run on a weekly basis. These provide services to the patients suffering from stroke and related disorders and children with various disabilities like cerebral palsy, neuromuscular disorders (polyneuropathies, myopathies, etc), neural tube defects, and musculoskeletal disorders (limb deficiencies, clubfoot).
The only functional departments of occupational therapy, speech therapy, resettlement, and vocational counseling in PAF are at AFIRM. (Table 1) The department of resettlement and vocational counseling was established in 2008. It helps disabled war veterans and their dependents cope with the social and vocational aspects of disability. Additional skills like tailoring courses, computer courses, and electrical equipment repair courses are arranged to help these brave veterans integrate back into society as useful earning members.
Artificial Limbs Centre (ALC) is the first center of its kind in the sub-continent. It was set up in 1911 at Puna in India, in anticipation of the casualties likely to occur in impending wars. Since a large majority of the soldiers of the British Indian Army came from the north-western part of India, it was later moved there; first to Sialkot in 1936 and then to Lahore in 1946. It continued to function here under the control of the Pakistan Army. After the 1965 War, as a lot of the war casualties were from the northern part of Pakistan, it was shifted to Rawalpindi. Since 1966, it is working under Fauji Foundation Hospital, Rawalpindi. The Artificial Limbs Centre is also the largest such center in the country. On average, it provides over 7,000 artificial limbs and supporting appliances every year, approximately one-third of which go to non-Beneficiaries on a cost price basis. Ex-servicemen, their families, and those eligible for zakat get them free of cost. Since 1966, when this center came under the Fauji Foundation, it has provided 2,23,538 artificial limbs and related appliances to patients, besides having done repair work on another 89,631. After the earthquake of 8th October 2005, the Artificial Limbs Centre played a major role in the provision of prostheses and orthoses to the injured. By fitting 259 prostheses and orthoses, it made the largest single contribution to this effort. In collaboration with the ICRC (the International Committee of the Red Cross), it is also carrying out a reach-out program, through which about 51 patients have so far been provided with artificial limbs and supports. In 2012, ALC was shifted to its new purpose-built building having a covered area of 37,500 sq ft with a budget cost of Rs 105 million. ALC, FFH presently providing the latest type of prosthetics/orthoses to disabled patients by using modular prosthetic components indigenously as well as of imported nature.
Short Business Description:Our vision is of a world, where every disabled child is the making of an individual capable of sustaining their lives with greater self-esteem and freedom from servitude.
Long Business Description:C-ARP is a registered Trust, working in world, in collaboration with its partners and stakeholders, to rehabilitate amputee children.
Our mission is to empower and mainstream disabled children as productive, active and inclusive members of the society and to overcome the prevalent negative attitude of the society towards disability.
Chal Foundation is a sustainable initiative to serve the physically challenged people of Pakistan. We enable the physically challenged to:
Walk, by replacing their missing limbs with prosthetics
Stand, by providing orthotics for skeletal deformities
Raise, by providing spinal cord injured with mobility aids (wheelchairs and crutches)
Pakistan Society for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled is a non-profit, charitable organization dedicated to the service of orthopedically handicapped persons. PSRD was initially established by orthopaedic surgeons in 1957 as a small Physiotherapy Centre within Mayo Hospital. PSRD moved to its current premises in 1964. With the passage of time, PSRD has become a facility recognised by Rehabilitation International as an organisation with the maximum number of activities under one roof. It is supported by donations from philanthropic individuals and organizations.
PIPOS is a non-profitable & non political autonomous body in the department of Health Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governed by the Board of Management PIPOS. The day to day affairs of the institute are run by a five members Executive Committee, lead by the Chairman BOM PIPOS. Being a self sustaining organization PIPOS collaborates with the national and international organizations/institutions for collaborative efforts and funds. Other sources of PIPOS income are the self paid students and patients who wish to have high tech assistive devices imported from abroad.