Physiotherapy programme

Press, 26 June 1987, Page 13

Physiotherapy programme

The North Canterbury Hospital Board provides a domiciliary pediatric physiotherapist, Mrs Robyn Bensley, who visits most of the C.C.S. children at home and at pre-school until they are five years of age. Mrs Bensley helps with equipment and gives the parents ideas on what to do to help and encourage their child. Since beginning her present job in October, Mrs Bensley said she had learned a lot about the physical, intellectual, social and maturing gains of the children.

Mrs Bensley seemed greatly relieved for one of her patients, a little girl who suffered from cerebral palsy, who had just taken her first walking steps at the age of three

years. After some years in orthotic shoes, splints and the aid of a walking apparatus, the young child is now able to walk in normal children’s shoes without a “walker” or splints. “It is a great achievement for her; and the beaming face tells you all that she feels,” she said. “It is her first step towards independence,” said Mrs Bensley. “I also help liaise with other people involved with the child, such as specialists or staff at a kindergarten that the child might attend. I try

to find out what that centre might need in the way of equipment for caring for the disabled child, or I can talk to them explaining what can be done to help,” she said.

Mrs Bensley is the only, domiciliary pediatric physiotherapist caring for the Canterbury area — her “round” spanning from the Rangitata River to the south, to Kaikoura in the north and the Southern Alps to the west. Mrs Bensley visits Ashburton monthly, has a patient in Waikari and another in Port Levy. “At one stage the job was about to be scrapped because of lack of funds, but it was the parents that

fought tp kefep a physiotherapist,” Mrs Bensley said. “It is a very demanding job, as I’m directly responsible to the children and their welfare. When you treat a child, you are actually’ treating the whole family, because they too’ are. very much affected iby the welfare of that one, child. For that reason, I’m always adapting myself to each family’s differing needs,” she said.