(Austalia) Occupational therapist Alison Hardman was walking the Kokoda Trail in Papua New Guinea with a colleague when a discussion came up about a not-for-profit organisation that works to repair bodies and rebuild lives.
Six years later, the Melbourne OT, who specialises in hand therapy, has visited Bangladesh four times, where she has volunteered her time to train local occupational therapists to assist patients in the aftermath of reconstructive surgery.
This year, Interplast Australia and New Zealand is celebrating 30 years of sending volunteer surgical teams across the Asia Pacific region where it has introduced more than 500 surgical and allied health medical program activities across 25 countries in the region, including 21,000 life-changing operations all free-of-charge to underprivileged patients.
“(This colleague) had recently returned from a trip where he had visited a rehabilitation facility and thought that there was enormous capacity for Interplast to become involved in the training of local occupational therapists,” Alison recalled.
“The Interplast surgical team was providing training to the local surgeons, however there was no formalised link or referral structure between surgery and therapy; a step that we know is really important to achieve the best outcomes for the patients.
“He was very impressed with the rehabilitation facility, and the work that they were currently doing and was keen to develop a partnership with the rehabilitation facility.
“Over the next few days we formed a rough plan of how we may be able to assist the local therapists develop their capacity to treat patients post plastic surgery intervention and took these ideas back with us to Melbourne.”
Since then, Alison has taught local therapists about new surgical techniques, postoperative therapy regimes and the fundamentals of hand therapy in a bid to help therapists with their ongoing work treating a variety of complex patients, ranging from adults and children with severe burn contractures to those with congenital malformations.
As part of the Interplast Hand Therapy Working Group established in 2007, Alison has worked alongside the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed in developing hand therapy services; helping hand surgery patients to not only be self-reliant but also valuable contributors to their communities.
Alison, who has worked as an OT for 12 years after achieving her Bachelor Degree in Applied Science (Occupational Therapy) and now works as the senior clinician and stream leader of plastics at The Alfred Hospital, said volunteering with Interplast was a rewarding experience, helping patients including children with severe burns.
But Alison said it was also incredibly satisfying watching local therapists grow professionally.
“My favourite memory...is of a local therapist who was helping in the burns unit,” she said.
“I saw him teaching the doctors how to perform range of movement exercises to a patient post-contracture release.
“The doctors were really engaged; it was at
that point that I realised that this program was really working, the therapists had gained confidence in their skills and were not only able to appropriately treat patients, they also had gained the confidence to teach and educate others on the importance of postoperative therapy.”
Alison has recently completed her Masters in Public Health and hopes to use her skills to continue to assist the program and possibly to develop similar training programs in other countries.
“I’ve been very fortunate to be able to go back a few times to Bangladesh and see the positive impact that the program has had,” she said.
“In the end I think it is one of those experiences in life where you take away more than what you give.”
(Source ncah.com.au)
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