University of the Witwatersrand
In 1924 the department of physiotherapy had been established in the Johannesburg Hospital and had been opened to patients in September 1925. Dr EB Woolf had been appointed as head of this department in February 1925.
On the 12th April 1926, a meeting between Professor Raymond Dart and Gladys Troughton (who held a teacher’s diploma from the Chartered Society of Massage and Medical Gymnastics) was held. Miss Troughton explained that there were two types of training available for masseurs and medical gymnasts in Great Britain – one for practitioners, and one for teachers. Courses in Anatomy, Elementary Physiology, Advanced Physiology, the Theory and Practice of Massage, the Theory and Practice of Medical Gymnastics were given. There were also lectures on Elementary Medicine, Surgery as it applies to massage, Theory of Educational Gymnastics and Practical Massage.
A syllabus for a three-year course for a Diploma in Massage, Medical Gymnastics and Electro-therapy was drafted. The anatomy and physiology courses were the same as those for second year medical students. Physiotherapy students were to do an elementary course in physics. There were to be elementary courses in medicine and surgery, as well as courses in massage and remedial exercise, medical gymnastics, and electro-therapy.
In 1927, when the course structure, fee structure, and approval from Faculty had come through in order to start the course, it was blocked by the Senate of the University of the Witwatersrand, until 1938.
In 1941, the title of Diploma in Massage, Medical Gymnastics and Electro-therapy was changed to Diploma in Physiotherapy, and in 1943, the Diploma course was changed to a four-year degree course as a BSc Physiotherapy.
University of the Free State (UFS)
The huge shortage of physiotherapists in the Free State led to the beginning of the Physiotherapy School in Bloemfontein in 1961. Mr. R.R. Rodgers was recruited from the United Kingdom to establish the Physiotherapy School. He was however, first sent to Pretoria to obtain a Diploma in Physiotherapy Education before commencing his duties in Bloemfontein.
The first four students to enroll for the three-year Diploma in Physiotherapy were selected in 1963. As Bloemfontein did not yet have the facilities to teach the basic disciplines needed for the diploma, these students had to complete their first study year in Pretoria. In 1965 the first four physiotherapists qualified in Bloemfontein
From 1969 the Physiotherapy School sorted under the Faculty of Natural Science but moved to the Faculty of Health Sciences in 1971. Since then the Diploma was replaced by a BSc degree of which the first were awarded in 1975. The Department of Physiotherapy is thus the oldest department in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the UFS.
University of Stellenbosch
At the beginning of 1966, the physiotherapy training was started in a single classroom in the Old Main building on Main Campus. Ms Moira van Oordt (nee Runnalls) was the only lecturer in Physiotherapy for the first three years. She demonstrated absolute perseverance and eagerness in initiating the Physiotherapy programme in Afrikaans. Ms van Oordt was in fact English speaking and there was no recognised Afrikaans terminology for this subject in the entire country. However, despite this, or perhaps because of this, she and Ms Irwin-Carruthers established the course in Afrikaans and today there is an extensive vocabulary for physiotherapy terminology.
The new department, with only 14 students, did not have any rights to established facilities and thus the students had their physiotherapy classes in all the “ghost areas” (wherever there was a space available). This group of students moved into a prefab building at Karl Bremer Hospital in 1968. The space was in fact so limited that they had to make use of the Bellville community’s church hall for their exercise classes. The first 3 students qualified in 1969 despite these challenges. Chemistry and Physics had already taken their toll, as the first students were not required to have completed Physical Science and Biology as matriculation subjects.
The first male student graduated in 1984.
The move in 1974 to the new facilities of the University next to Tygerberg Hospital was the next milestone achieved. Spacious classrooms and a well-equipped gymnasium were now also offered with the extended physiotherapy department and wards of Tygerberg Hospital now offered facilities for the training of students.
Ms Rita Jurgens was the first Chief Physiotherapist at Tygerberg Hospital and, together with Ms Van Oordt, was responsible for the planning and maintenance of these new clinical departments. Space on the second floor of the Teaching Building once again rapidly became inadequate and forced the move to the fourth floor in early 1990, where offices, four classrooms and a lecture hall were available.
There are also many former students that have achieved success in other areas of their professional lives. To name a few:
- Ms Carina Eksteen was the first student to become head of an academic department and to be awarded her doctorate in physiotherapy.
- Prof Jennifer Jeltsma was attached to the University of Zimbabwe for a long time and is now at UCT.
- Mr Adriaan Louw is working in the USA as a teaching and research colleague together with the well-known Mr David Butler.
- Ms Lynn Bardin and Ms Gisela Sole work as lecturers attached to various universities in Australia and New Zealand.
- Ms Jenny Hendry, a former lecturer and previous head of the Physiotherapy division at Tygerberg Hospital, is now Head of the Centre for Care and Rehabilitation of the Handicapped at Karl Bremer Hospital; in 1998, she was the first head of a similar academic department at the US that achieved a M Phil (Rehabilitation).
- Ms Quinette Louw appointed as the first associate professor of the Physiotherapy department in April 2005.
Tygerberg Hospital remains as the academic hospital and is still the main clinical platform for the specialist training of our students. The service delivery of the students with regards to patient care in Tygerberg Hospital cannot be accurately estimated. During 1995-1996 (available statistics before the bed numbers were drastically reduced), students treated a total of 4,449 patients with 14,117 treatments.
Service provision to patients in the community was actually identified as a requirement as early as 1983 and began with house-calls to chronically handicapped people with the view to care and long-term therapy of the patients. This community outreach programme was formalised in 1994 when the department, as part of a faculty initiative, shared in the planning and initialisation of Bishop Lavis Rehabilitation Clinic. Thereafter, other community clinics in Stellenbosch and Paarl were identified and accredited as training facilities for students.
A new era was introduced with the establishment of the Faculty of Health (FH) in 2002 and, simultaneously, the School for Allied Health Professions (AHP). Ms Ria Bester was honoured as the head of the School for AHP’s and consequently resigned as the third head of the department. Prof Susan Hanekom is the current Head of the Department.
Post-graduate training is being promoted through the liaison with clinical personnel in Tygerberg Hospital in order to facilitate students, and this has led to the recruitment of postgraduate students.
With the restructuring of the faculty and with the inclusion into a macro department, an era has ended for the department and we will now be faced with new challenges. We can, however, say with certainty that a strong foundation has been laid and that the students and lecturers of Physiotherapy will still make a valuable contribution to the development of this faculty.
