This Amazing Device Just Made Wheelchairs Obsolete for Paraplegics
From Gizmodo:
The young man in this video looks like he's riding a Segway. But Yusuf Akturkoglu was paralized after falling from a horse five years ago, and he's being mobilized by an amazing device invented by Turkish scientists. It's going to change lives.
It's called the Tek Robotic Mobilization Device, and it not only allows people who can't walk get around more independently than any device has before, but it also helps them stand up on their own, which is crucial for maintaining basic health functions in people who have spinal cord injuries.
When I stopped to think
why I feel so emotional, I realized it is the
sheer humanity expressed by this device. The inventors have gone to great lengths to provide a solution to people paralyzed through spinal cord injuries and give them a device that allows them to move around in an upright position.
A simply marvelous and humanitarian invention.
But then I came to understand what was really moving me to tears was the realization that this device is automatically not available to almost all the 50-ish million uninsured people in the USA, and not available to many other people who are under insured. In Turkey, this man can get access to the device via the public/private health insurance setup.
The real tragedy here is a humanistic device has now become available to our American inhuman society that cannot provide health care for all its citizens.
And while the blogosphere rages with anger at the gays, blacks, women and poor people, and while scientists are lampooned for being leftist lunatics, there is still merciful work being done - even if not all of us can enjoy it.