Broken spine, unbroken spirit: Rehabilitating patients with spinal cord injury

Dr Ketna Mehta shows spinal cord injury survivors how to live  dignity         

Matunga resident Dr Ketna Mehta was all of 32 when she met with a life-altering accident—she crash-landed while paragliding, a spinal cord injury leaving her paralysed from waist down. 

In the face of a great deal of pain and changes, she found strength and encouragement in her family who rallied around her. Her sister Dr Nina Doshi became a sort of mentor to her, providing motivation and moral support.  

“A spinal cord injury is the most devastating disability on this planet, which is permanent and incurable. The only way forward is lifelong rehabilitation. This is when Nina told me ‘This has happened to you with a purpose. You can channel this into something that would help the world and bring a change,”’ shared Dr Mehta, who has a PhD on the market potential for a world class spinal cord injury rehab centre in Mumbai. 

After Nina’s untimely death in 2000, Dr Mehta decided to bring her sister’s words to life and established Nina Foundation in 2001. The core idea of the NGO has been to help rehabilitate people with spinal cord injury in rural and urban poor settlements. For 23 years, Dr Mehta and her team have helped those with spinal cord injuries who depend on wheelchairs for mobility. 

“So many people don’t have control over bladder and bowel due to the injury and initially need help with it. So we help with rehabilitation—social and recreational,” she shared. Her team talks to the patients to help focus on what they can do and how, instead of things that they can’t do any more due to the injury. 

Patients require several things that she has been gifting. “Wheelchairs, cot, bedding, wheelchair commode, commode chairs, catheter, urine bag, are a few of the many things that we have gifted people.” Educating people on how to live with this disability and empowering them has been the key idea. 

Apart from this, the NGO offers counselling for patients and family members; they teach patients how to sit, stand, get in and out of a wheelchair, how to wear callipers, etc. 

“We were doing this in the city at a community space in the suburbs and during the pandemic, we moved it online. Virtually, we were able to reach more people and inspite of the lockdown restrictions, we were able to deliver the same impactful work,” shares Dr Mehta. For the younger people with injuries, Dr Mehta motivates them to study and work, in order to move forward in life and not let the injury define their lives.  

Over the years, the NGO’s work has benefited thousands of people. Dr Mehta believes that each person with a spinal cord injury deserves world-class rehabilitation and a right to live a life with dignity.  

Dr JV Yakhmi, scientist, educationist and writer, who has known her for a decade, shares that Dr Ketna’s work has been helping not only patients with spinal cord injuries, but also people around them who end up becoming caregivers. “Nina Foundation’s work has been helping people with spinal cord injuries especially in the financially vulnerable pockets of the country. Dr Ketna helps them not only with rehabilitation but also financially, as this injury is an expensive affair. Her work has a far-reaching impact,” he shared.    

Published on: Monday, September 02, 2024, 06:32 AM IST