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Children in their growing years need to have their limbs replaced every 12 to 16 months. That is because they simply out grow them, much like any child out grows their shoes, these special children out grow their prostheses’. The costs for these limbs and limb replacements can be anywhere between $5,000 for a static limb to $12,000 dollars and more, for a more advanced myoelectric limb.
Many health insurers limit the amount of coverage for this need thereby limiting a child’s emotional, physical growths and general acceptance by one and all they encounter, not to mention the many other families who have no health insurance at all. Variety Club Houston has risen to the challenge thru The Variety Club’s Limb Bank Program & Fund, which helps in many ways to support these children.
In addition to financial support given on behalf of the families directly to the limb manufacturer, Variety Club Houston also has negotiated lower prices and interceded with various insurance companies to make sure the families were getting all the benefits they were entitled to.
Variety makes a long-term commitment to these children so they and their families won’t have to worry or delay in having their need’s met.
An individual without impairment takes utterly for granted actions a limb-deficient child yearns to accomplish. To brush his or her own hair or teeth, to move unaided from room to room without being pushed or carried, to pull up a sock, to chant “one two, buckle my shoe” and not mean it literally.
As a central part of this program, recycling efforts have begun thus allowing the growing number of children we serve, the option of utilizing limb components once used by other handicapped children. The significant savings and far-reaching effects to be reaped from this recycling program alone will ensure that Houston and its neighbor’s many children in need of prostheses’ from the Variety Limb Bank Program & Fund will experience the joy and satisfaction of functioning independently.
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In the broad spectrum of Variety-sponsored programs dedicated to the comfort and care of handicapped children, there is none more distinguished in scientific implication and universal impact than the development and operation of Limb Banks. In terms of research, manufacture and fitting centers, it is one in which Variety played, and continues to play a major role thru the establishment of Variety Club Houston’s more successful programs, our Variety Limb Bank Program & Fund, which was established to assist families with children who are limb deficient either through birth defect, accident, or from amputation.
