Kolkata: Doctors at SSKM Hospital give ‘robotic hand’ to school student

Kolkata: Doctors at SSKM Hospital have a fresh lease of life to a school student from Harirampur in South Dinajpur who had lost his left hand in the tragic train accident at Balasore in Odisha in June 2023.

The doctors of the department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in assistance with the state Health department procured a special robotic hand and after fitting censor and thorough assembling, successfully amputated the same to Class XI student Riyaz Afridi.

“Being a young student, he wanted to have the normal functions of a hand to the best extent possible and mere cosmetic surgery could not have provided it to him. So, we had to adopt Myoelectric Prostheses in case of Riyaz,” Dr Rajesh Pramanik, head of the department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, SSKM Hospital said.

He informed that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who also heads the Health department has asked the officials to take measures so that the loss that Riyaz had suffered can be recovered.

Myoelectric prostheses have motors and batteries on board to power the movement of the devices that are ultimately controlled by input from electrical signals generated by muscles in the residual limb.

When muscles are contracted, they give off an electrical signal.

In prosthetic devices, electrodes sitting on the skin inside the socket detect these muscle signals and send them to a controller, which triggers movement to correspond to what the user intends.

A doctor involved in the amputation said that the entire process of procurement right upto the amputation was done completely free-of-cost which at private health establishments would have cost nearly Rs 10 lakh.

“The doctors have given me a new life. I am indebted to them for the care and concern they have shown for me. They have always encouraged me to be positive and not lose hope,” Riyaz said.

Doctors said that he will be released from the hospital soon.