Occupational Therapist “Part Of Medical Team”

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30479, 29 June 1964, Page 9

Occupational Therapist “Part Of Medical Team”

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, June 28. New Zealand doctors are not quite as forward as they might be in accepting the place of the occupational therapist in reconditioning patients after all kinds of 111-

nesses, the Director-General of Health (Dr. H. B. Turbott) said in Auckland. He was speaking at the first graduation ceremony for girls completing the threeyear course at the School of Occupational Therapy. Dr. Turbott said the graduates should know this to avoid possible frustration when they discovered that their perception of what they had been taught was not fully shared by the medical team of a hospital. “The doctor, the physiotherapist, the occupational therapist, and the social worker should be an integrated team,” Dr. Turbott said, “but you will not find that in every hospital in New Zealand.”

Wherever new hospital blocks were planned, however, provision was now being made for occupational therapists and the physiotherapists to be accommodated in equal partnership and work with the doctor as a team, “instead of being pushed into a shed down the back of the hospital gardens.” Dr. Turbott said he also hoped to see the day when general practitioners would be able to call on the combined skills of physiotherapists and occupational therapists to help persons who were not actually hospital patients.