May 21, 2021

Staff Physiotherapy Clinic opens

To look after our staff the best possible way, Northern Health’s Occupational Health and Safety Department is delighted to announce the launch of the Staff Health Clinic – Physiotherapy. The clinic is a new service designed to look after the musculoskeletal health of Northern Health staff.

“We are ready to start taking patients from today. We had a trial run this week with a few test patients, which has gone well. We are running Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and we are happy to see staff come in,” explained Tom Cooper, Physiotherapist, who leads the clinic.

The clinic will be seeing Northern Health employees from all areas. It aims to provide high quality one on one physiotherapy care to staff who sustain injuries whilst at work, to help them have an optimal recovery and return to work safely and a timely manner. The clinic will also provide care to staff who have acute or acute-on-chronic musculoskeletal injuries or conditions not directly sustained at work, that limit their ability to do their job safely and comfortably.

“We will be seeing two streams of patients. One stream would be staff with a sustained injury at work, which is our main focus. However, we will also see people who have injuries or muscle pain issues that aren’t related to work, but cause a problem for them and make work difficult. This type of patients can refer themselves to the clinic via our Intranet page“.

“If you hurt your back trying to get a patient out of bed, or if you hurt your shoulder trying to move a box, or you’ve fallen over and hurt your ankle, we will see you. If you have injuries or pains in your normal life outside of work, like if you hurt your back in the garden or playing sport or even if you’ve had a flare up of an old injury, contact us. This is a short term service, as we are aiming to see people no more than six times,” Tom explained.

Tom has worked at Northern Health since 2017 across musculoskeletal outpatient clinics, community therapy services and the Emergency Department. He is passionate and committed to providing high quality care to patients and getting the best outcomes possible. Tom takes an active and evidence-based approach to his patients, focusing on getting patients moving well and understanding how to manage their condition to optimise recovery.

“If you have sustained an injury at work, be sure to submit an incident report through VHIMS to access the service through OHS,” he said.

Staff looking to refer themselves into the service for non-work injuries can do so by submitting the self-referral form found on the clinic Intranet page and sending an email to staffphysio@nh.org.au. The clinic runs Monday, Wednesday and Friday 8 am to 4.30 pm and is located in the Fit Testing Clinic (old People and Culture office).