In 2012, the World Federation of Occupational Therapists defined occupational therapy as follows:
Occupational therapy is a client-centred health profession concerned with promoting health and well-being through occupation. The primary goal of occupational therapy is to enable people to participate in the activities of everyday life. Occupational therapists achieve this outcome by working with people and communities to enhance their ability to engage in the occupations they want to, need to, or are expected to do, or by modifying the occupation or the environment to better support their occupational engagement.
The occupational therapy department of Potchefstroom Hospital is well-established with eight permanently employed occupational therapists. This aids in realizing our vision which is participation in meaningful activities and quality of life for all patients receiving occupational therapy. Our mission is to render quality occupational therapy services to ensure patients engage in all life spheres as independent as possible.
At Potchefstroom Hospital, we provide services to both in-patients and out-patients. Conditions that we treat vary greatly, and include patients from the medical-, surgical-, orthopaedic- and paediatric units. Specialized services that we as occupational therapists provide at Potchefstroom Hospital include assessing patients with mobility impairments to issue them with the correct wheelchair, fabricating and issuing customized splints and pressure garments and providing various assistive devices such as enlarged grips, dressing sticks, button-hooks, etc. to enable independence in activities of daily life.
As the need arose, the occupational therapy department established three groups that provide continuous occupational therapy intervention. These groups consist of the stroke support group, the NICU/prematurity stimulation group and a wheelchair service group. Servicing a fairly rural community, we also provide occupational therapy outreach services to patients from Ventersdorp Hospital every month.
The occupational therapy department firmly believes in empowering the communities with knowledge to reduce disability, and also educating communities on available services when disability has set in. We therefore celebrate various health awareness days as recorded on the National Department of Health’s health calendar, and enjoy conducting radio interviews at the local radio station.