LONDON (Reuters) - A black woman due to have her lower leg amputated was offered a white false foot and told she would have to pay extra if she wanted one that matched her skin, she said Monday.
Ingrid Nicholls, 46, said she was told at the state-funded hospital in Oxford, central England, that she would have to pay about $4,725 for a prosthetic limb that matched her skin color.
The cost of the white foot would have been covered by the National Health Service.
"If you've got to have an amputation, you should be allowed to have an artificial limb in the color that is relevant to your skin," she told Reuters.
"It's not cosmetic. Who would want to look like a freak, having one white leg and one black one -- nobody."
http://news.excite.com/odd/article/id/73312|oddlyenough|08-26-2003::10:24|reuters.html
Ingrid Nicholls, 46, said she was told at the state-funded hospital in Oxford, central England, that she would have to pay about $4,725 for a prosthetic limb that matched her skin color.
The cost of the white foot would have been covered by the National Health Service.
"If you've got to have an amputation, you should be allowed to have an artificial limb in the color that is relevant to your skin," she told Reuters.
"It's not cosmetic. Who would want to look like a freak, having one white leg and one black one -- nobody."
http://news.excite.com/odd/article/id/73312|oddlyenough|08-26-2003::10:24|reuters.html