Centre For Sydney Spastics

Press, Volume C, Issue 29567, 17 July 1961, Page 2

Centre For Sydney Spastics

New South Wales, like most other places, was not doing much to help spastic children—not until Mr and Mrs Neil McLeod, of Sydney, stirred up public sympathy. They formed a group, mostly parents (like themselves) of spastics, and someone gave them a house for a spastic centre at Mosman. That was 15 years ago. The idea of helping spastics to walk, talk and feed themselves and achieve some degree of independence, appealed to the community spirit of the district.

Now the centre and a livein hostel nearby had grown ao big and far-reaching that they cost £3OOO a week to run, said a member of the voluntary staff, Mrs A. P. O’Callaghan, in Christchurch recently. Buses bring children from Sydney suburbs to the centre at Mosman and take them home again. Country children. however, are required to live at the hostel, which was opened a few years ago. First the children are taught to walk and talk. Later they are instructed in ordinary school curriculum subjects. as far as their learning capacity will allow. Doctors, speech therapists, special teachers and physiotherapists are included on the centre staff. Until last year, when the Government began granting subsidies to the controlling body, the entire cost of the project was met by public subscription. SELF-HELP BY PARENTS The idea of helping yourself by helping others reaches out to parents. Mothers of spastic children from the suburbs give one day a week helping at the centre. Mothers of country children live at the hostel for five weeks of the years as aids. “Already nearly 50 of the boarders have been taught to walk in the few years the hostel has been opened,’’ said Mrs O’Callaghan. Soon it was hoped to establish a complete hospital block at the hostel, with an operation theatre and resident doctor, she said. The centre was also planning to open a sheltered workshop to train children to do some kind of work after they left the centre at the age of 18. “Some kind of training is important. Otherwise children go back home to live after they leave the centre and just sit around," she said. Spastic Children who lose their parents have not been forgotten. The Sydney Spastic Centre has a long-term plan for providing accommodation at the hostel for orphaned spastics. It is expected that they will be able to help support themselves by assisting in the sheltered workshop or in some suitable job at the centre or hostel. CENTRE RECEPTIONIST Already two spastic girls have been trained at the centre as receptionists and telephone switch-board operators. “This huge project, which is doing so much to make spastics feel useful and independent, grew out of two people’s enthusiasm,” said Mrs O’Callaghan. “And their enthusiasm has fired others. The crew of one of the Royal Australian Navy vessels has given a bus. Private citizens have followed their example by giving other requirements.”

A canteen is run for the children and all staff members at the centre by five or six voluntary workers every day. Mrs O'Callaghan is one of them. Morning and afternoon teas and lunches are served there and the canteeen’s profits go to augmenting centre funds. Another canteen will be opened when the sheltered workshop is started. Bus drivers, who bring the children to the centre every day, do not waste time while waiting to take their passengers home again. They do gardening, carpentry, painting or service the buses—whatever needs to be done. While in Christchurch, Mrs O’Callaghan found many of her old friends interested in the work of the Sydney Spastic Centre. "I hope something like this will be possible in Christchurch some day. I feel that spastics are a rather forgotten section of the community,” Mrs O'Callaghan said.