Wheelchair Project

In Nicaragua, an uncounted populations of people suffer from neurological conditions.  Part of our efforts have been investigating disorders such as spina bifida, which occur with high frequencies in Nicaragua.  These conditions are devastating because those affected often have impaired mobility and require wheelchairs.  During our Quality of Life Spina Bifida research studies from the 2010 winter trip, we investigated the harmful impacts of spina bifida to the patient and family.  From our data, we noticed that limitations on physical activities due to the disorder adversely affect quality of life.  While many people with neurological disorders come from afar to receive care and supplies such as wheelchairs, we have witnessed a general lack of wheelchairs in both of our affiliate hospitals: El Lenin Fonseca Hospital and La Mascota Pediatric Hospital.  El Lenin Fonseca Hospital, is a government-funded hospital that serves as a safety net provider to countless Nicaraguans.  Despite the great need for wheelchairs, lack of hospital funding by the government, in addition to financial barriers, exclude immeasurable number of families from obtaining them.

We will send a team comprised of dedicated and conscientious UCSD undergraduates and graduate students to the two major hospitals in Managua: El Lenin Fonseca Hospital and La Mascota Hospital.  There, we will manually construct and donate wheelchairs using blueprints that will have undergone rigorous testing by our collaborating graduate engineering students.  Our purpose is to ensure the distribution of as many wheelchairs as possible to those in need of them.

A domestically built wheelchair cost anywhere from 150 to 600 US Dollars.  In 2009, Nicaragua’s GNI (gross national income) per capita was 1010 US dollars (World Bank, World Development Indicators); which indicates that purchasing a wheelchair can be a significant financial stress for families.  Realistically because of the grossly uneven distribution of wealth in Nicaragua, this number does capture the difficulties faced by living far below our standards.  In addition, the physical constraints of shipping such large items coupled with the associated delivery costs to Nicaragua makes it impractical to simply fundraise for the domestic chairs.

The wheelchairs are designed to be constructed using items purchasable in Nicaragua with the idea that we can teach Nicaraguan locals how to construct their own wheelchairs using our donated parts.  Various considerations have been taken in account to ensure that the wheelchairs will be cost-effective and durable in various terrains because many of the patients, especially those from rural communities that lack specialized hospitals, cannot easily make visits to the two hospitals.  We hope that this teaching component will enable our project to have a continuous impact even after the trip.  In addition, the valuable interaction from this teaching component will provide greater fulfillment to the team members.

We will be working closely with the Neurosurgery department in El Fonseca Hospital and the pediatric neurosurgery department in La Mascota hospital.  We have ties to both departments and have worked with them in the past.  We hope to build as many wheelchairs as possible while in Nicaragua. As of now, there is no definite end date yet for the wheelchair project, as such supplies are always in need.  Hopefully, we will set up a mechanism through which we can receive feedbacks through the institutions.  This trip will be used to continue and improve our assessment of Nicaraguan needs.

 

We would like to thank Woodmen of the World, who have contributed substantial financial support to this effort, and the team of engineers.

Team:

Daniel Ahn

Javier Lee

Paul Kang