WORK FOR WOUNDED FINGERS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 128, 5 December 1941, Page 42

WORK FOR WOUNDED FINGERS

Occupational Therapy Is Not As Fearsome As It Sounds

OU just can’t get away from that hospital smell. It meets you at the main entrance and goes with you wherever you go, then it lingers with you, and when you start back again accompanies you all along the corridors to leave you reluctantly at the front entrance. It’s as much part of the

hospital atmosphere as white tiles, iron bedsteads, nurses, and porters wheeling stretchers. | But I’ve discovered a place in the centre of the Wellington General Hospital where there’s no such thing as hospital smell or hospital atmosphere. That’s the Occupational Therapy Department. a: "Occupational Therapy Department," when. you read it on the door, sounds rather impressive. And when you open the door and find that the Occupational Therapy Department consists of two small rooms and an annex, you are surprised. But when you have explored the two rooms and annexe and talked for a short time to Miss Marie Porter, who is in charge of the department, you realise that floor space. is the only thing about the O.T.D, which is not impressive. Two Objects in View Usually when you interview somebody, you sit down in a chair and she sits down in a chair and you ask various questions which she answers, and you jot down the answers as soon as possible afterwards. But my interview with Miss Porter wasn’t quite like that. Miss Porter has no time to sit down. I asked an occasional question as I followed*het about the room, but most of the time, I merely watched and marvelled at her competence, her patience, her general delightfulness. Miss Marie Porter is small and dark, and has an infinite capacity for amusement. She has an amusing place in which to work, too. All round the walls are stuffed animals, painted figures in

wood, mechanical toys that go round and round. All these have been made by the patients under Miss Porter’s direction. But she hasn’t much time to play with them. The patients occupy all her attention. "Occupational therapy has two objects,’ said Miss Porter. "The less important is that it gives the patients something to do. But the more important is that it teaches them to start using muscles which have _ perhaps been out of use for some time, and which will mend more quickly with gentle exercise, "The department here was set up to deal especially with soldiers who have been invalided home. I have a number under my care at present, as well as other patients who are recovering from accidents and need some form of remedial occupation." é Proud Of His Work The door opened and in hobbled a tall dressing-gowned figure, one foot in plaster, one hand grasping a_halffinished wicker tray with waving canes. He exhibited it proudly. "Think I'll start a coloured band now, Do you think blue?" He followed Miss Porter into the storeroom with its stacks of raffia and huge crates of coiled cane. I watched while she deftly started a blue cane on its winding journey through the uprights, "How many years of training in handiwork do you need for a job like this?" I asked. "I was a school teacher batts I took my course in occupational therapy, so I knew the rudiments of things like basketwork and weaving, toy-making,

and fretwork. Then we had a three months’ special course at Pukeora Sanatorium. The course had to be short, as girls were needed urgently, so that they could be ready by the time the first hospital ship came in. Girls are being trained all the time. We’re in desperate need of at least two more girls here in Wellington Hospital, and I expect them any day. I find it very difficult carrying on alone, because I do like to get round to each of my patients at least once a day, and it’s sometimes very difficult. Spinning-Wheel Wanted "I have been here only since last June. When I first came, there was absolutely nothing here. We had to begin by finding a room to work from. Space is so urgently needed that it was _ days before we could persuade anyone to let us have this room. Then I had to start by buying all my materials, raffia, cane, three-ply, tools, workbench, looms. The weaving and basketwork ‘are very good fér those who are learning to use their fingers again, but I’m still looking for a spinning-wheel. It’s urgently needed for those with leg wounds-the treadling provides just the right amount of exercise. And, of course, it’s good for the fingers and arms as well. But all the existing spinningwheels seem to have been commandeered by the women’s organisations, who are teaching countrywomen to spin their own wool. A Happy Party Throughout our conversation, pyjama’d and dressing-gowned figures had been drifting in and out of the small room, getting fresh materials, having their errors diagnosed and corrected, their enthusiasms endorsed. A few waited to pass the time of day. It was a very happy little gathering. "How do you work this thing?" I asked somebody. It was a hand loom on which a gay plaid scarf was nearing completion. "Better ask Mac, that’s his. If I tried experimenting, I’d probably mess up the colours. Hi! Mac!" Mac came. He had his right arm strapped to his chest, but he manipulated the shuttle with his left. The (Continued on next page)

Work For Wounded Fingers

(Continued from previous page) pattern grew. So did the party. More and more people kept arriving. "Why the rush?" I found time to ask Miss Porter. "It’s almost closing time for ‘the department," said Miss Porter. "I leave at half-past four (it was almost five then), and they do like to get started on something before I leave, so that they can go on with it in the evening." "J must go," I said, feeling suddenly superfluous. "T’ll come along the corridor with you." Outside the door of the O.T.D. the hospital smell was waiting for us. "I promised to go upstairs and help a little girl with some tapestry. I'll go back to the men later." "Do you work with the children as well?" "No, the Hospital School looks after them. But this is rather special. She wants to get her tapestry started so that she can show mother to-night. Then I'll go back and fix up the men in my -department. The day seems so long to anyone lying in bed, and I don’t feel happy unless I’ve left each one of them with something to do in the evening. I think that’s one of the secrets of being happy, having something to do, don’t you?" At any rate, I reflected, as I said good-bye to the hospital smell at the main entrance, Miss Porter must be a

very happy person.

M.

B.