Wheelchair Clinic

I actually count my daughter's current wheelchair as one of my successes.   However, I think it is important to explain how we got it and all that we had to go through.

My daughter is at risk of hip displacement and curvature of the spine.  Many severely disabled children are the same and there are plenty of children of a young age with dislocations and looming surgery.

Obviously we want to avoid this, or put it off, for as long as we possibly can. 

Up until about six months ago, my daughter's wheelchair was 'off the peg'.   She was unable to sit in it properly and slouched, sitting on her sacrum, rather than her bottom.  Her top half was also slumped and her feet were not properly secured.

It was very obvious that she needed a moulded seat for her chair.  This process is done up in Oxford at the wonderful Oxford Centre for Enablement where they place your child in a giant sized bag of polystyrene balls, position her, then suck all the air out, leaving a perfect supportive mould.

Four appointments, each of about three hours later, we had our beautiful new chair!   My daughter sits beautifully in it and it has helped her every day function hugely.

However, the whole process took well over a year from realising we needed it to actually getting it.  I had to find out about what was available myself and have several rows and hundreds of phonecalls to chase up in the process.  For one thing, we needed the referral of my daughter's consultant - someone we only see once every six months!