> RECENT NEWS
> NEWS ARCHIVE

Global Shift in International Wheelchair Distribution

 

The First International Consensus Conference on Wheelchairs for Developing Countries, held in Bangalore, India in November 2006, is a major mile post in our efforts to improve the quality and variety of wheelchairs and wheelchair services to be provided throughout the developing world.  The soon-to-be-published conference Conclusions and Recommendations will be a seminal document in this worldwide effort.

 

The Consensus Conference was organized by the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics (ISPO), and modeled after a similar conference ISPO held strictly for the P&O field.  The goal of the Consensus Conference was to establish the points of agreement among stakeholders as a first step toward improving products (wheelchairs) and service delivery.  Mobility India, an NGO that advocates in the interests of people with disabilities, hosted the conference.  The World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) also sponsored and participated in the conference.  WHO will consider the Conference’s Conclusions and Recommendations as it prepares more detailed Guidelines for Wheelchair Provision in Developing Countries to be publishes later this year.

 

There were 86 participants from 22 countries and 38 organizations attending the meetings.  Organizations included a major Chinese wheelchair manufacturer, two major wheelchair providers, the Free Wheelchair Mission (FWM) and the Wheelchair Foundation (WF), and a major purchaser of wheelchairs, LDS (Mormon) Humanitarian Services.  On the other end of the spectrum were small wheelchair shop managers from India, Kenya, Morocco, Nicaragua, South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda, and Zambia.  Participants also included representatives from governmental and non-governmental development organizations, organizations of disabled persons, universities, rehabilitation centers, and orthotics and prosthetics experts.

 

Although at times there was considerable heated discussion between FWM and WF on one side and almost everyone else on the other, the result was consensus on the key issues that wheelchair services are integral to wheelchair provision and that wheelchair users must be included in wheelchair services in integral roles rather than as mere recipients.  Some of the key elements of the conference’s Conclusions and Recommendations include:

 

·         Wheelchairs should meet or exceed International Standards Organization (ISO) standards;

·         Wheelchair riders should be able to choose their own wheelchairs;

·         Wheelchair Riders should have a variety of wheelchair models from which to choose;

·         Wheelchairs should be locally repairable

·         A wheelchair should last for at least 5 years.  (Many wheelchairs donated from the U.S. and Europe last from a few weeks to a year.)

 

A final draft of the Conclusions and Recommendations can be viewed on the Whirlwind Web site.

 

Whirlwind has been in the forefront of efforts to promote and extend ISO standards to wheelchairs distributed in low-income countries.  In 1996, Rehabilitation Engineer Dwight Johnson developed a series of inexpensive strength tests to be used by manufacturers in developing countries to test their designs. In 2004, Whirlwind and the Center for International Rehabilitation of Chicago and Motivation of England published a joint position paper on the need for product, service and training standards for wheelchairs distributed in developing countries. Whirlwind has been a major contributor over the past year to the development of the upcoming WHO guidelines.