Publications
Navigating a staircase in a wheelchair requires nerves of steel and a very strong helper – nearly 90% of wheelchair injuries are caused when people fall out of the chairs. There are motorised chairs that can navigate stairs but they’re American made and come with a prohibitively expensive price tag – between R370 000 and R452 000. Enter Ernest Majenge, the self-proclaimed “Wheelchair Doctor” from the Free State.
Ernest (29), an accountant by qualification and an entrepreneur at heart, has made it his business to transform wheelchairs and the lives of their users. He’s invented a unique, South African-made wheelchair that can navigate stairs – at the fraction of the price of the motorised US chair, the Ibot.
“People really struggle to imagine how hard it is not to be mobile and I sympathise with the disabled – I want to make their lives easier,” Ernest tells us.
