GULU UNIVERSITY MEDICAL JOURNAL

Gulu University Medical Journal (GUMJ) 2009/2010 Vol 5.
Dealing with traditional fracture splint
Figure 2: Tight splint immobilizing only the fracture
Traditional fracture splints are locally made pieces of
wood knitted together with either pieces of clothes,
banana fibres, or sisal to form a rigid framework that
can be used to immobilize the broken limbs of victims
of road crush, falls, and or domestic violence.
With the increasing number of physical body trauma
especially due to automobiles, falling off heights,
especially off mango trees, tall buildings under
construction, and overloaded lorries, the majority of
the victims sustain broken bones of the limbs either
Mr. Kisige Michael
Orthopaedic Surgeon, Gulu Regional Referral hospital
kisigemichael@gmail.com
the upper limbs or lower limbs, at far places away
from health units. More often than not due to lack
of paramedical ambulance services in our society,
the community makes simple wooden splints as an
alternative to help transport the victim with minimum
pain to either the bonesetter or to hospital for
treatment.
The wooden splints locally made have existed in the
community for a long time. However, few people seem
to recognize what the community does to help the
patients who have sustained broken long bones. They
are the oldest splint before a British bonesetter Hugh
Owen Thomas (1834- 1891) invented the famously
used hospital Thomas’ splint that is used to splint
lower limb long bone fractures.
The community designs local splints used to stop the
injured limb from dangling during transportation, or
to facilitate healing. In Modern orthopaedics, Thomas’
splints, Cremer wires and other industrially made
splints are used for immobilization of fractures of limb
bones.
Learning how to make traditional splints is through
participatory observation. Various communities use
the available materials; for example in Buganda
wooden sticks (Obuuti) or reeds and banana fibres or
cloth, in northern Uganda commonly bamboo sticks
(kor in Luo) are used with pieces of cloth or fibres from
back of trees. Urban communities may make use of
hard paper boxes that are wrapped round to suite the
injured limb. The knitted splint or sticks are organized
well round the injured limb, and then strapped by the
pieces of cloths, sisal or banana fibres.
During splintage, pressure is exerted through skin
adequate enough to stop excessive movement of broken
bones during transportation or muscle contractions,
but not to compromise blood supply to the distal part
of the injured limb.
There should be adequate padding between skin and
Gulu University Medical Students’ Association (GUMSA) Passion for life 48