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Access to Hydrotherapy pools

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  • grandma46
    grandma46 Community member Posts: 6 Listener
    Local hospital eventually after much pressure kept hydro pool but no hoists available and now no disabled parking nearby!

  • Debra_Lorraine
    Debra_Lorraine Community member Posts: 15 Connected
     Hi i managed to access hydrotherapy  I found it absolutely great at improving my mobility. However because I was referred to it to reduce pain and It had not made much difference to pain and because I was referred to it to reduce pain, I only had six weeks and it ended.  Improving mobility was not a good reason to be allowed to continue.
  • veriterc
    veriterc Community member Posts: 241 Pioneering
    This happened to me, so I made a list of all the conitions I had, which I don't normally make a fuss about, went to see my GP and asked for a referral to relevant consultants, and when I got to see them asked them to refer me for hydro.
    The current system wastes so much NHS time and money, but it's the way the Tic Box Mandarins like to play it.
    Inncidentally, which hospital did you go to with a Hydro pool?  I am helping make a list sowe can use the pools, and ensure they don't get cllpsed down because of limited use.


  • veriterc
    veriterc Community member Posts: 241 Pioneering
    In the weird way the NHS works, if your Hydro pool is closed, make a stink about needing a hoist for disabled people, threaten to demonstrate, and I bet you get a hoist installed.
    There is an organisation called Save Our NHS - those near me demonstrate at the drop of a hat.  I am sure they would like a sensible reason to mount a demo.
  • Debra_Lorraine
    Debra_Lorraine Community member Posts: 15 Connected
     The hydrotherapy Pool is at Frimley Park Hospital. I will go back to gp and see if I can get another  referral 
  • veriterc
    veriterc Community member Posts: 241 Pioneering
    Good luck - maybe we should suggest Scope organises lessions on "How to play the NHS at its own game!"
  • newborn
    newborn Community member Posts: 832 Pioneering
    The pharmaceutical industry makes billions from selling chemicals to the n.h.s. I. E. Licenced drug pushing.     (Just like the tobacco industry etc.)

    Of course, they will  use some of their vast financial resources to openly or covertly lobby and influence public  policy makers. 

    Of course, this is motivated by profits and/or back pockets.    It can never even be pretended this is  intended to be in the best interests of the public............Just like, say, lobbying from the tobacco industry, the gambling industry,  the alcohol industry.

    The only contesting to the way the n.h.s is run, comes from yet another self interest, the terrifying n.h.s union bosses who bullied honest whistleblowers, such as the nurse in Wales who, among other revenge atrocities, found her mother in law's body had been dug from the grave.    This organised hate mob don't want the public to have a good health service at a fair price, if it threatens the monopoly power of union bosses.  We have one of the worst, not best, health outcomes in the developed world.

    Single individuals in the n.h.s certainly do work hard and honourably, just as single coal miners, steel workers, dockers,   ship builders, and newspaper printers once did, till their forced or willing obedience to union bosses wrecked their industries.

    Has anyone ever explained why the n.h.s is "the world's biggest employer"?  Most countries, mainly with bigger populations,  have public health services, most are better than n.h.s.    Given the fact that every other country has less staff, for better health outcomes, what on earth are all the non productive people doing, in this country, on the taxpayers'  payroll?   

    Is it like the discredited press print industry, where union bosses endlessly defended gross inefficiency and over staffing with only a fraction of the workforce actually having a productive job  ?
    (in fact, many on the payroll were fictitious,  with, at worst, people signing in with multiple names and pay packets issued to 'Mick mouse', Donald Duck, etc.)
  • veriterc
    veriterc Community member Posts: 241 Pioneering
    The only way the NHS is going to improve is if everyone one of us points out where it could be better, then asks politely why it isn't.  I now search out a decision maker, and quietly ask "could we have,,,"   which has ranged from getting proper pain control when being given an X-ray of broken bones in A & E (this was withheld until the doctor looked at X-rays as saved time) to getting more hydro sessions because I ask every consultant to recommend it.  Many say they never thought of this.   So good luck - just ask!
  • mrsjbc01
    mrsjbc01 Community member Posts: 2 Listener
    I have written to Lloyd’s gym asking why in there adverts say that they are such a modern organisation why do they not have a sloped access to their pools. They replayed quite simply saying that they provide a hoist, which is all that they are required to provide by law.
    i feel so frustrated I have C.P like most of us here I do not have a deadly desese, and yet my husband can keep himself fit, he can enter a warm indoor swimming pool but I can never accompany him because there is no way I can climb in or out of the pool and believe me I have tried.
    i want to go swimming with my grandchildren. 
    When I was younger swimming was one of the things I loved I was more agile then now at almost 60 my legs don’t bend so well, but all the time I am being told by the GP you need to lose weight to help with your diabetes but how can I if I can’t get in the ..... pool. 
    We need to fight this
  • newborn
    newborn Community member Posts: 832 Pioneering
    Can you not use any hoist? 

    I know it isn't one size fits all. Some people need one type of hoist, some another, some need steps, some need slopes. 

     People who are unsteady walkers  cannot safely walk on wet tiles into a pool.  (It isn't safe to lean on eityer companions or staff, and certainly not safe to use rubber tipped walkers or sticks or crutches)

     They need either a firm railing from the dry area, right into the water, or else a pool-entry wheeled chair, which staff can use to transfer them safely from changing area into the depth they prefer.
  • veriterc
    veriterc Community member Posts: 241 Pioneering
    I've seen wheelchairs being used to transfer patients for hydro- the type that are used for taking a shower on the wards seem pefectly suitable,and must be cheaper than installing hoists.  It just needs a bit of thought to find the right one. 
  • grandma46
    grandma46 Community member Posts: 6 Listener
    Of course there are those who are unable to support themselves in a shower chair or need hoist to transfer from wheelchair to shower chair. Unfortunately when it comes to disability no one size fits all.  Some are unable to weight bear at all which is why hydro gives such freedom and benefit as pull of gravity lessoned by bouancy of water and more movement possible. 
  • Debra_Lorraine
    Debra_Lorraine Community member Posts: 15 Connected
    It seems that the policy  is more important than human beings,  They wanted to bring down teenage pregnancy so instead of insureing schools understood the right of consent  and emotional pressure,  The answer was to use any excuse possible to put girls on the pill and fill the body full of drugs, Seen too many kids in their early 20s after stepping away from these toxins  and Now can’t use the pill when They need it,  however the target was met teenage pregnancies down,  The side-effects, Collateral damage are not documented but we live with the policy’s. 
     I see this is no different with weight on disability,  if you can’t move its because you’re overweight.  Your told to loose weight.  The fact that you’ve gained weight while sitting 12 to 18 months on the waiting list for assistance  for chronic pain or injury,  is seen as not relevant. Because the policy now says anyone overweight has to lose weight first before they get any treatment for anything.  Weight is now to blame for every health condition.  And yet you asked for assistance to get more mobile and the answer is no, mobility is currently not a policy !

      
  • veriterc
    veriterc Community member Posts: 241 Pioneering
    Don't you wonder if the right hand knows what the NHS's left hand is up to.  Can't see that the PR puff blowing around today about 'Prevention' is going to make any difference.  If you try to get hydrotheraoy to stay mobile I can't see us getting any more sessions. - Can you?
    Whoever invented tick boxes has a lot to answer for. As long as someone can tick a box that says we have had our 'officia' hydrotherapy sessions, this means no-one needs to continue to supply these!
  • newborn
    newborn Community member Posts: 832 Pioneering
    Veriterc is right. Tick box is wrong.   

    Hand out tax cash to whichever smooth talkers have pals in the right place.  Then, let them think up their own tick box to justify spending  their funds.

    Employ  pals on high pay?  Fine.   Hand out leaflets telling the public to stop smoking and drinking and eating junk food ?   More leaflets telling them not to be so fat?   Yet more, proclaiming that everyone needs to go running daily ?   All absolutely fine, at unlimited cost.    

    But not much use, if the recipients don't smoke or drink, eat a careful diet, are thin, and would dearly love to go running, but the zimmer frame makes that yet another insulting, alienating proof that officially, nobody has mobility problems, or if they have, that they are just another irritating abberant  creature who doesn't feature on the tick box, therefore is not  supposed to exist at all.

    .
  • Margaret7
    Margaret7 Community member Posts: 4 Listener
    veriterc said:
    Welcome to the Community,and good luck with finding a pool.  If you do, could you go to www.aftercancers.com and leave the address on one of the hydrotherapy pages please. I am trying to help the British Polio Fellowship compile a list,as the NHS doesn't know what ones it has!

  • Margaret7
    Margaret7 Community member Posts: 4 Listener
    Hi I live in Bucks. In fact quite near stoke Mandivlle hosp.   I do use Hydro pool and yes I feel so good after wards . But only once a week right now ..I do believe many Hospitals would open their Hydro pools .    If more Physo people would C to  be their to watch over the people in the pool .. I do a evening session   But would love to do a lunch time  once a week also .  As the pool is closed for a whole hour. Or more ... But again it the physio people has got to v but when we pay our monies they also get paid for the Sessions.    But I also use the Stadium pool , it self. 2 or 3 times a week if I can.  God you know the difference after that hot pool .But I do believe all hospitals do have hydro pools . It just getting the  Physos people to work it .lunch times. Evenings. In their free times .  

    So so why not goggle and just ask you may be surprised where ever you live and your Hospitals you live by ... Try on websites  sometimes you don’t need to be refereed it might just be a phone call .... good luck all x
  • Margaret7
    Margaret7 Community member Posts: 4 Listener
    please escuse my Grammer not too good with it .  
  • newborn
    newborn Community member Posts: 832 Pioneering
    Where possible a group might hire a pool, but would need insurance, and probably a bond to cover the cost of a "backwash" (the system for cleaning a hydropool when a user has vomited).   There is a need for a group to prove to the premises management there will be someone to sue.

    The myriad of splinter group charities for this that and every different disability will resolutely remain rigidly segregated.    If, for example, Polio rents a local hydro pool on one session a fortnight, and Cancer rents the same pool once a month, then even their own potential members might well be excluded, merely by the timing.  The whole of the surrounding area might be stuffed full of enough potential hydropool users to keep it running 24/7, paying for hydrotherapist supervision, and making a profit.    But it will be closed, from 'underuse', or left idle most hours, most days, .

    Above all, they would need to guarantee they have employed their own lifeguard.  (Which might seem o.t.t. for a waist high mini pool, but actually  plenty of people do have lifeguard certificates, so it isn't impossible)

    The impossible bit is likely to be in employing a hydrotherapist for love or money.  One private hospital sells ostensible hydrotherapy but the sessions are in truth run by a physiotherapist.   Hydrotherapy is a different specialism, in which he has no training, no expertise, and no interest or belief. He openly asserts that he cannot see any point in hydro.  He believes physio on dry land, (his own area of training), is all anyone should need or receive. 

    It's interesting that the T. V. experiment showed 9 out  of 10 old people improved health, strength, balance, mental and emotional wellbeing, from being freed from age segregation .  (And that the children also benefitted ) Interesting too that they had no idea their strength etc. could be improved at all, only decline further and further.    
  • newborn
    newborn Community member Posts: 832 Pioneering
    P.S. there are single cubicles systems, which are filled like a bath for each user, obviating any risk from people who need warm water, but cannot use communal pools due to having problems with fainting, continence or vomiting (a frequent problem).

Brightness