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Comment by urban_winter | Hacker News Reader

$1000 is not cheap for an off the shelf wheelchair such as hospitals make available for patients (in the UK, at least). That was my first thought on reading the article - "$1000 for a wheelchair, really?" - and a quick Google shows that you can buy what looks like reasonable quality wheelchairs for less than that. But the ones on the article are custom-made for each buyer, which is clearly a vastly more expensive option.

But, to the point, hospitals don't buy custom wheelchairs.

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No, you can't buy a reasonable quality wheelchair for less. You can buy what a person who doesn't need a wheelchair consider reasonable. If you had to use those cheap chairs for 16 hours a day, and pushing yourself even just for a mile of well paved roads, not even uphill, you would never consider those reasonable.

This is absolutely the point. You have to live sitting in there. That must be more comfortable than the best thing in your house. No way you can do it for less than 1k.

Not just sitting, pushing yourself. Making a comfy chair is one thing, making one that you can also be mobile in, much harder.

Except the wheelchairs used in hospitals are to push patients short distances across hard flat floors.

The OP isn't about hospital wheelchairs, but daily use wheelchairs. It's just most of the commenters here showing ignorance or ableism by suggesting the two are equivalent.

I'm not saying otherwise - my comment reaffirms this. There are two separate things going on here -

- You can buy a reasonable wheelchair for moving people relatively short distances across flat surfaces for less than $1000. E.g those used in hospitals and for the partially mobile.

- You cannot currently buy a reasonable self propelled wheelchair for full time use for less than $1000 (give or take the manufacturer in the article).

What about serviceability and spare/replacement parts?

I guy selling mobility scooters told me that most customers never service theirs as it is easier to get the health insurance to pay for a new one every x years. This results in a very limited second hand market.

It doesn't work like this.

Take aircrafts or (to some degree) a racing car. You need a screw. Sure you can get one at your local hardware shop for a penny, but for regulated market you need one with certification and that will cost you something close to $10. I know it's crazy but that's how it works.

Difference being it doesn't fail and if it does you know exactly how it was made and under which process. There will be an investigation to see what went wrong - was it the screws fault or was more force placed on it than it was certified for.

Vs the one from the hardware store could have come from Alibaba and be a plastic core with a thin coating of metal for all you know.

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