Physiotherapy New Zealand (PNZ) is using World
Physiotherapy Day to highlight the need for education and
health services to be more aligned for children with
disabilities.
Chairperson of PNZ’s Paediatric
Special Interest Group, Merryn Robertson says whānau of
disabled children often have difficulty navigating both
services.
“It’s hard for families to know where to
go to for advice and who to take advice from and there is
often a lack of communication between providers. We need to
find ways to make it easier for children with disabilities
to access both education and health services in order to
improve their wellbeing, mobility and quality of
life.
“For children under five years old, their
support comes from the Ministry of Health and once they
start school their care comes under the education system.
It’s a very complex system to navigate particularly as
children with high needs still need support from health
professionals.
“It would be great to see more
collaboration between health and education and greater
clarification on the pathways for families. It was
particularly challenging during Covid where requirements for
schools and health settings were not only different but
sometimes conflicting,” said Merryn Robertson.
Vice
President of World Physiotherapy, Australian paediatric
physiotherapist Melissa Locke says it’s a similar
situation in Australia. She is visiting New Zealand this
week for PNZ’s biennial Physiotherapy
Conference.
“Covid restrictions in Australia have
been particularly difficult for families and highlighted
some of the issues. Masks weren’t mandatory in schools and
families were very fearful for their disabled children, so
consequently kept them home. Those patients who were highly
immunocompromised stopped going to hospital appointments to
reduce the risk of coming into contact with those
unvaccinated.
“Many hospital services were cancelled
because of staff with Covid and while telehealth was
offered, it is of limited value for people with complex
disabilities. As a result, loss of function and mobility
occurred quickly which meant an increase in the cost of care
to remediate the loss of function and in some cases,
death,” said Melissa Locke.
Melissa Locke is
speaking at Physiotherapy Conference 2022 being held in
Rotorua this
week.
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