The Ptolemy Reid Rehabilitation Centre

Providing long-term physical rehabilitative care

By Venessa Deosaran

The Ptolemy Reid Rehabilitation Centre since its inception has as its mission, to provide a national service for all children in need of longterm physical rehabilitative care.

Cynthia Massay, rehabilitative officer at the centre, in an interview with Guyana Times Sunday Magazine said the centre had its genesis as the Polio Rehabilitation Centre located at Charlotte and Oronoque Streets. It was originally established January 1967 by the health ministry to provide rehabilitative services for children who had suffered residual paralysis following the 1960 and 1964 poliomyelitis epidemics. With control of this disease and therefore the subsequent reduction of these types of cases, the centre developed into an organisation providing comprehensive programmes of rehabilitation for children with various types of physical and other developmental disabilities.

In 1985 the centre moved to Carmichael Street because the old building had many structural problems. In 1991, Massay mentioned, in an effort to improve resource acquisition so as to expand and provide quality service more effectively and efficiently, the centre was de-linked from the health ministry and is now managed by a voluntary management committee.

The government provides an annual subvention and professional staff, while the board raises funds both locally and externally to finance its operations.

With the expansion of the national orthotic and prosthetic appliance workshop, the facility now has the potential to manufacture almost any appliance that may be required by persons with physical disabilities.

“The National Orthotic and Prosthetic Appliance Workshop, which did start off as a small section of the Polio Centre providing appliances for the children who had polio, is now a national service where we provide all the orthotics and prosthetics supplies of any person with a disability who needs that service to aide in their rehab. They can come and get an appliance done right at the centre,” Massay stated.

In the early nineties, in order to address the needs of the clientele that had become adolescents and young adults, vocational rehabilitation was introduced.

“We also have a vocational training unit, which we hope will have a new building this year. This is where we provide vocational skills training for adolescents because many of these students are still unable to access other training facilities due to their disabilities; so we found that we needed to assist them with life-skills that would enable them to earn an income and be independent as they move into adult life.” In 1998, the centre was also able to implement its audiology service for persons with hearing impairments and disabilities.

The Audiology: Ear mould and Electronics Laboratories provide hearing aids for persons with hearing impairments. The clinical testing and diagnostic services are provided at the unit that is located in the Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic of the Georgetown Public Hospital.

Clients are then referred to the centre to be fitted with their ear moulds and hearing aids. The hearing aids are calibrated in the electronics laboratory that also provides servicing for all audio equipment. This project was initiated and financed for a period of two years by the Commonwealth Society for the Deaf, now called ‘Sound Seekers’ but the centre, through the management committee, is now solely responsible for the continuing development of the Earmould and Electronics Laboratory, and the acquisition of replacement supplies.

In 2009, the centre collaborated with the Guyana Greenheart Society to offer accommodation for their therapy centre for children with autism. The centre also has an amputee clinic, which is geared to work with amputees who would have been discharged from hospital following the removal of limbs. They are fitted with artificial limbs and trained in the use of those limbs, among other things.

The main objectives of the centre are to provide on a daily basis a range of rehabilitative services, including physiotherapy, special education, speech therapy and occupational therapy to meet the needs of the clients; provide a range of other social services including schooling, dormitory, dining and recreational facilities for those children resident at the centre; provide counselling and educational services for parents of children in rehabilitation programmes, urging them to be more involved in the programmes; make provisions for orthotic and prosthetic appliances for the physically disabled in Guyana, and strengthen the financial wellbeing of the centre by attracting resources from outside the traditional sector.

Massay said that the centre plans on having a special school for all disabled children called the ‘PRRC Special School’. She added a proposal was made and she hopes the school would be completed during this their 45th year. (Taken from Guyana Times Sunday Magazine)