Children’s Therapy Unit celebrates 50 years of hope, possibilities

When Linda Yates came to Puyallup more than 50 years ago to start her rotation as an occupational therapist at Good Samaritan Hospital, she thought she would only stay for a year, and be working with adults.

Neither of those plans panned out like she thought.

“I always knew I wanted to do pediatrics, but I had just moved into a new placement in an adult wing,” she said. “A couple kids came in as referrals; they were darling little kids in an adult movement wing. I realized they weren’t just little adults and that we needed to have a separate unit. Doctors were also realizing there wasn’t a resource for these kids.”

When the end of Yates’ stint in Puyallup was nearing, the therapist she was filling in for while on maternity leave never came back, and a labor strike in her native Canada meant her one year at Good Samaritan became permanent.

After deciding to stay in Puyallup, Yates also decided she wanted to work solely with children. From there, the Children’s Therapy Unit at Good Samaritan was created.

“I thought that if we were going to serve children, we were going to serve them well,” she said. “The Children’s Therapy Unit became the first hospital-based neuromuscular center. Children in our community had needs that weren’t being met.”

Dr. Don Mott, retired chief medical officer for the CTU, remembers hearing about the program while training as a medical student in Salt Lake City.

“When I came out here, I was amazed by the program,” Mott said. “We’ve seen kids come in as patients and are now doctors and lawyers. It’s an amazing program, the kids are so upbeat and so are the parents. The CTU is really about building hope and possibilities.”

Fifty years later, the legacy of Mott and Yates is still going strong. This year marks 50 years since the program’s inception in 1966. The CTU sees about 2,500 patients per year, which amounts to about 40,000 total visits.

When Mott and Yates first began work in the CTU, the therapy unit was made up of a basement space in Good Sam, with cottages surrounding the hospital before the current facility was built in 2000.

With a therapeutic playground, pool, a gym, a garden, and countless therapy units, the current building was constructed with the goal to find what motivates the child to stick with their therapy program, said Marianne Bastin, director of pediatric therapy services at CTU.

“Possibilities is what the CTU connects to,” she said. “You don’t know what the outcome of the child will be, so we don’t establish limits here. If the child wants to do it, we find a way. That’s why our program looks the way it does. It’s a very unique program that has this great combination of services under one roof, without families having to travel.”

One of those families which frequents the CTU, Carrie Wilbur and her son, Quinn, have come to CTU at least weekly since Quinn was an infant 10 years ago.

With a running joke that Quinn had a goal to see every therapist at the CTU, he sees physical therapists, occupational therapists and feeding therapists at his twice-weekly appointments. His therapy sessions vary from time in the pool to using a motorized wheelchair on the therapeutic playground — usually chasing his physical therapist, Wilbur said.

“There really is nothing like the CTU,” Wilbur said. “The turnover is low, we’ve had great relationships with all of the therapists. They are so professional and warm, it would be hard to duplicate this place. They’ll go to bat with the insurance companies for you, and really go up and beyond. I feel incredibly privileged to live close to a facility like this. Families who are receiving services here are usually suffering, and they have such great tender loving care, which is so important. They have high quality therapists, and I can’t imagine ending up somewhere else. There isn’t any place like this one.”

This story was originally published February 16, 2016 at 2:48 PM with the headline "Children’s Therapy Unit celebrates 50 years of hope, possibilities."