An amputee at a local hospital, who could not access prosthetics for nearly five years, was the catalyst for a young Soweto woman to break into the biotechnology and healthcare industry, reports News24.
Sibongile Mongadi is the brains behind Uku’hamba Prosthetics, a thriving healthcare manufacturing company that produces lightweight prosthetics.
Mongadi was included in the Top 100 Most Influential Young South Africans, and achieved recognition as a Global Digital Female Leader in Innovation, among many other achievements over the past four years.
News24 reports that the catalyst for her company came in 2018 when she met an amputee at a Gauteng hospital. She said the amputee had been attending the same hospital for five years, hoping to get a prosthetic, to no avail.
Mongadi said the delay in obtaining prosthetics was apparently due to unaffordability and lack of stock.
Mongadi spent the next two years researching the subject, and then, despite no funds to start the initiative, launched her business in 2020 in her mother’s back yard. It grew to a team of five, including herself, full-time mechanical and bio-medical engineers, who manage the production side of things, and two contractors who help with the electronic and functionality side.
“We also have advice from university industry experts,” she said
The company produces arms, hands and leg prosthetics, as well as prosthetic covers, braces, splints and handicap shoes. They also do repairs and maintenance.
In addition to receiving assistance from the SAB Foundation, which focuses on helping businesses that assist people with disabilities, Mongadi said Teraco Data Environments, a private company, had placed them on a supply database and works with Uku'hamba Prosthetics every year as part of its Corporate Social Investment programme.
News24 article – How a Soweto woman’s prosthetics company is giving hope to amputees (Open access)
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Wits engineering students lend a hand with cheaper prosthetics
SA student develops high-tech knee brace
Exoskeleton improves walking in patients with above-knee amputation