B. Braun Medical Ltd Supports Fundraising Campaign To Give Employee A New Bionic Arm

A South Yorkshire healthcare solutions company has helped Rotherham woman Madeleine Rowntree to raise £10,000 during lockdown to buy a state-of-the-art bionic arm.

Madeleine, 26, from Thorpe Hesley was born without her left forearm and has grown up using standard NHS prosthetics which offer limited grip and movement.


But, thanks to a fundraising campaign and a donation of nearly £5,000 from her employer, Sheffield-based B. Braun Medical Ltd, Madeleine now has a high-tech Hero bionic arm from Open Bionics, based in Bristol.

Madeleine, who received the arm in January, said: “I have never let having one arm get in my way and have always continued life as normal - I go to work every day, drive, love to cook, go to the gym, swim and more, but this new bionic arm will help me even more.

“I can’t thank B. Braun enough for their help and support with my fundraiser and so kindly offering to make up the remaining funds I needed to reach my £10,000 target.

“I also want to thank everyone who has supported, shared and donated - you have all made something possible for me that I never thought would be.”

The Hero arm is tailor-made to fit and features a range of high-tech functions such as the ability to control the speed of fingers for delicate tasks. This makes it the closest possible substitute for the way a human hand works.

Madeleine added: “I’m still building up muscle to get fully used to the weight of the arm, and still figuring out how to use it for different tasks but I’m learning! I use it most days to type with at work which is brilliant, and there are lots of other little things it helps me with. It will make such a difference to my quality of life.”

The £4,465 donation from B. Braun Medical Ltd, where Madeleine works as a Senior Data Administrator, gave her the remaining funds to purchase the bionic arm.

David Oates, UK Group Managing Director at B. Braun, said: “We are thrilled to support Madeleine with her campaign, and she is clearly already seeing the benefits her new arm is having to her daily life.

“As a company we are passionate about the improving the health and lives of people through our innovation and research, so we understood the difference the bionic arm would make to Madeleine. It was a pleasure to help her, and we are looking forward to seeing her experiment and learn new ways of benefiting from it in the coming months.”