By
Michael Brooke
More than 400 RAN and ADF personnel have recovered from potentially
career-ending sports and training injuries after passing through
the Rehabilitation facility located within the Navy Indoor Sports
Centre at HMAS Kuttabul.
Many of the recuperating Navy personnel call the Clinical Pilates
program conducted at the Rehabilitation facility as a “God
send”, while others praise it unreservedly as a “minor
miracle”.
In fact, the four Navy personnel who the Rehab facility has
saved from medical discharge (and who have since returned to
their normal duties) consider the Senior Physiotherapist and
Pilates Clinician, Anna Lewis, to be a bit of a “miracle
worker”.
LS Adam Thompson told Navy News that it is a “minor miracle”
that the Rehab program had saved him from medical discharge.
“I was facing medical discharge due to serious injury to
my thoracic vertebrae and tears to my lower back muscles sustained
while playing rugby for HMAS Success in October 2005,”
he said.
“But I was declared fit for duty at sea on June 28th and
this small miracle is entirely attributable to the rehab work,”
he said.
“I can’t speak highly enough of the Rehab facility
because I never thought I would get back to sea.”
LS Thompson is just one of the dozens of RAN and ADF personnel
who visit the Rehab facility early each morning for vital therapy
to sports and service related injuries.
LS Rob McDonald, an instructor at the RAN Dive School at HMAS
Penguin, said he was facing discharge after two rounds of surgery
to repair burst discs after falling off his racing bike.
“This Rehab facility has definitely saved my career as
a RAN dive instructor and you can’t begin to imagine my
happiness,” he said.
“Such is the value of this Rehab facility that more like
it should be set up at other bases, particularly HMAS Penguin
where some of the new divers spend many months recovering from
training injuries.”
Senior Physiotherapist and Pilates Clinician Anna Lewis said
she established the Rehab facility in March 2003 in recognition
of the need, particularly during the RAN’s high operational
tempo, to save sailors with sports injuries from discharge and
get them back to duty at sea quicker than expected.
“The facility was established in recognition of the need
to facilitate ADF member’s return to functional activities,
rehabilitate injuries, prepare for BFT and downgrade medical
categories,” she said.
“Each members needs are individually assessed and a program
is designed to meet the goals required by that member,”
she said.
Ms Lewis is currently undertaking a Doctor of Clinical Physiotherapy
at the University of Melbourne and is researching the success
of this rehabilitation program as part of her thesis.
