Therapist retires

Press, 5 October 1984, Page 5

Therapist retires

A pioneer cerebral palsy therapist, Miss Margaret Hartridge, has retired 31 years after she started a home treatment service in Christchurch.

Miss Hartridge worked as a physiotherapist with the disabled in hospitals before she had the "freaky idea” in 1953 to help disabled children and their parents with a home service scheme.

About 25 people now worked on this scheme throughout New Zealand, Miss Hartridge said.

In 1966, she was awarded the M.B.E. for her work and in the same year she won a World Health Organisation fellowship to study the treatment of cerebral palsy in the United Kingdom and Europe. In 1958, she spent three months in Singapore working on a Colombo Plan project to establish treatment services.

Miss Hartridge, who estimates she has treated about 1040 children throughout the South Island, said that facilities for disabled persons had improved

greatly. But there had been no great improvement in residential facilities for the severely disabled and this was probably the greatest future need, she said. Community attitudes had also improved and there was a growing awareness and acceptance of disabled persons. This awareness could not be legislated for or improved by funding. It is a people thing, but it is happening, said Miss Hartridge.