It’s women for women at QEII Hospital’s Physiotherapy Led Pelvic Health Clinic (PHC) and Women’s Health Physiotherapy Service (WHPS), where a dedicated team of Allied Health professionals are redesigning care pathways for Queensland women living with complex pelvic floor conditions.
Launched in 2016, the female-led PHC follows successful models established at other major SEQ health services and operates from QEII’s all-new Allied Health and Ambulatory Care (AH&AC) building.
The team behind the service comprises Advanced Physiotherapists Janelle Greitschus, Allison Bryant, and Kate Hooper; Senior Physiotherapist Marnie Evans; and Senior Dietitian Melody Chaussende.
With expertise in women’s pelvic floor health for 25 years and counting, Janelle (pictured front left) says the service’s success is written in its interventional framework, which introduces proven conservative care pathways that support women while they await specialist appointments.
“Patients with conditions like prolapse or incontinence are generally triaged as a category three, which involves an average 12-month wait time before seeing a medical specialist. There’s really good evidence for non-surgical, conservative treatment for those conditions,” Janelle said.
“In the standard model of care, patients might see a gynaecologist who tells them they need pelvic floor physiotherapy, and that starts them on another waitlist.
“In the PHC model of care, we can see them while they're waiting to see a specialist, provide expertise in conservative therapy, and their condition is on the improve by the time they see the specialist. It also speeds up the pathway for those women who do ultimately need surgery, because they've already completed their conservative care,” she explained.
From assessment to treatment, the clinics provide a thorough and highly specialised pelvic floor physio care pathway that’s tailored to individual patient needs and includes complementary dietetic support as needed.
“We run two models of care. The first is our post-referral Women’s Health Physiotherapy Service, which accepts referrals from our specialty Urogynaecology, Urology and Colorectal units here at QEII, and services an average of 100-120 appointments monthly. The Pelvic Health Clinic follows an agreed model of care that takes patients referred by their GP into those specialties, and provides targeted conservative care while patients remain on the specialist waiting list. The PHC services an average of 140-190 appointments monthly,” explained Kate (pictured front right).
“It’s a multidisciplinary team approach as opposed to just a physiotherapy approach. The dietitian aspect of the PHC supports women living with constipation, those who have specific conditions where weight loss is proven to help, and those who need pre-surgical weight loss support. Our Dietitian provides an additional 40-50 occasions of service monthly,” she said.
Eight years on, the team has helped thousands of women conservatively manage and improve symptoms for a range of conditions, while reducing specialty surgical waitlists by nearly a third.
“Up to 30 per cent of patients can be discharged from pelvic health clinics without requiring additional gynaecology care because they’ve completed conservative care first, which results in a significant reduction in surgical gynaecology wait lists,” Janelle said.
Bringing decades of combined specialised expertise and a shared passion for advancing women’s healthcare, the powerhouse team of five are committed to empowering patients through targeted therapies, personalised education, and compassionate care.
“We’re very blessed to have physio clinicians who are very experienced and have advanced skills in this area,” said Janelle.
“Whether they’re embarrassed, they think it can’t be helped, or they’ve been dismissed by their GP, women face massive barriers to treatment. A lot of women silently accept their symptoms as normal, because they’ve had children or because they’re post-menopausal. That’s not the message we’re trying to convey. We want women to know if something doesn’t feel right, there is potential to seek help for it and improve those symptoms at any stage in life.
This Women’s Health Week (2-6 September), Janelle says demystifying women’s health by starting conversations and raising awareness around services like pelvic floor physiotherapy are key to enhancing long-term health outcomes for more women.
“So often, women don’t talk about the issue or the impact it’s having on their lives with close friends or even their partners. What’s interesting is that when our patients start to see big improvements in their condition, they are more inclined to confide in their friends about it, and the whole tennis club starts getting referred.
“Being able to provide early conservative care is really the pathway we want women to follow. Improving symptoms significantly improves quality of life, and also makes women feel more comfortable talking to other health practitioners about it once they start to see results,” she said.
Special thanks to the whole WHC team for your continued commitment to progressing female-focused healthcare at QEII.
