WUHAN CITY, CHINA – Rehabilitation is a substantial and increasing unmet need in many countries. WHO has called for action to meet this unmet need by 2030. The WHO Collaborating Centre for Training and Research in Rehabilitation in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College has been working with people have spinal cord injuries to maximize their abilities. Through partnership and peer-support approaches, the centre has contributed to strengthening delivery of integrated people-centred care.
The centre has developed a template to promote patient-oriented discharge planning, or ongoing medical care, for all inpatients who have had spinal cord injury or stroke. The template includes key information for patients or care-givers to support the transition from the hospital to daily life. Follow-up at specialist hospitals can be limited. As such, the discharge planning template is a way to link specialized hospital services and community-based rehabilitation. The centre is partnering with nongovernment organizations (NGOs) in the design and implementation of discharge planning. The template brings together patients’ and professional voices as a communications tool between specialist spinal cord injury rehabilitation departments and community-level disability and rehabilitation services.
To implement discharge planning and ongoing support, the WHO collaborating centre provides routine and systematic rehabilitation training and education to staff of Hao Ran Gong Yi, an NGO in Wuhan City specializing in lifestyle redesign for spinal cord injury survivors. The NGO is supported by the China Disabled Persons' Federation. The NGO's founder, Mr Wenbing Hu, became paraplegic after an accident. Most of the NGO's staff are also spinal cord injury survivors and former inpatients at Tongji Hospital. Through the NGO, staff members provide inspiration, encouragement and lifestyle redesign support to other people with spinal cord injuries.
Through this approach, the WHO collaborating centre will continue to work with patients and nongovernment organizations to strengthen rehabilitation services in the health system. The experiences in China will be shared with other countries to contribute to meeting the unmet need for rehabilitation.