It's all about quality therapy

NST: KUALA LUMPUR: It has been 20 years since occupational therapists in Malaysia spoke about setting up a council to register and license those in practice.
Occupational therapy -- a form of rehabilitation to improve a disabled person's ability to perform daily activities and to be independent at work and leisure -- has not been organised to preserve and maintain quality.
Consultant physiotherapist and Universiti Putra Malaysia associate professor Nathan Vytialingam sees how big an impact this will have on patients.
"People are trying to produce more therapists, but the question is, what about the quality? Once you have quality therapists, patient care will be better. It's just like going to a certain doctor, because we know the doctor is well trained," he said.
The proposed council, Nathan said, should have functions similar to the Malaysian Medical Association and the Bar Council when it comes to registering practitioners.
"We have been talking about this for 20 years now and it's not been done yet. This is something that needs to be looked into seriously. We have lecturers coming from overseas, but they don't need to register with a council. It's all about check and balance."
This, he said, would keep an eye on those who might not have the expertise they claim to have.
"I have heard of therapists who come from overseas, some even from Europe, claiming to be specialists in children. How do we know they are experts in therapy for children? The patients do not know this."
Nathan added that it was important to pass an allied healthcare act to regulate therapists who want to practice.
"It is not just about renewing licences. They need to go for professional development courses and get updated on the latest (information) in the field. Someone can be sitting in a shop and be practising without updating themselves with the latest information. That is dangerous for patients."
Malaysian therapists follow a Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct under the Malaysian Occupational Therapists Association.
Nathan, a past president of the association, added that Malaysia was slowly moving towards arming therapists with a bachelor's degree qualification to increase the number of registered therapists, which now stands at just 400.
While there are 21 colleges and universities offering physiotherapy courses, only two universities have degree programmes for occupational therapy. Another private college is expected to begin a course next year.
He said although more countries in the region had overtaken Malaysia in the number of degree courses offered, it was heading in the right direction.
But leaving it to be freely conducted without a proper accreditation board to look into the standards of these courses, Nathan said, was a cause for concern.
"There is a need for licensing because if you visit some of the colleges, you won't find Malaysians. They're mostly, or all, foreign lecturers. I am not against foreigners because some of them are very good. But there is a need to monitor it."
Although the current programmes are accredited, there is a lack in seeing how well the education and knowledge gained by students translate into community-based occupational therapy practice.
"Standards need to be set. We have accreditation and it is easy to accredit something theoretically, but we also need to go to the ground to see what is happening and update ourselves.
"At the end of the day, we are just trying to maintain the quality, so people will realise that occupational therapists are a group of trained professionals and the community will benefit from it."