A South African teenage entrepreneur’s idea is assisting wheelchair users in improving mobility. The wheelchair doctor is Ernest Mongezi Majenge. He restores vintage wheelchairs and transforms them into stair-friendly, off-road vehicles. Majenge spends 24 hours assembling all of the elements required for each mobility product.
“ The secret of the wheelchair are the wheels. The wheelchair has been there for years but we only changed the wheels which has star wheels. We can also transform it to have the normal circle wheels that you can use it on a flat surface. It is a two in one wheels.” said Ernest Mongezi Majenge, 911 The Wheelchair Doctor
Majenge’s off-road wheelchairs have already made their way into the international market, with France being the first to place orders. He intends to produce 10,000 wheelchairs in a year.
“So far we have in a day we can manufacture four wheelchairs and it depended on the order we get since it is a new start-up company. On the ruby side, there were 5 that were sold in France and in South Africa there were only four.” he said.
While innovation in wheelchair manufacturing is a step forward in increasing mobility, the price tag remains a barrier for some manufacturers and users.
“Obviously we want strong durable wheelchairs but we don’t want to pay the cost of them so we would like innovation to bring the cost down and when it comes to maintenance with whatever innovations come, it needs to be easy to maintain and parts must be interchangeable.” said Ari Seirlis, QuadPara Association Board member
Wheelchairs in South Africa can range in price from $200 to over $10,000 USD. Ernest Mongezi Majenge, an innovator, believes that there is a market for more cheap high-quality wheelchairs.