Becky Chaplin volunteers as an occupational therapist in the ship's rehabilitation team
An operation corrects a limb. Learning to use it again takes weeks of patient work.
A successful operation is not the same thing as a good outcome. What happens in the weeks afterwards decides that.
Why rehabilitation is not optional
A child whose legs have been straightened has spent years walking a different way. A patient whose burn contracture has been released has an arm that has not extended since the injury.
Without structured rehabilitation, scar tissue re-tightens, muscles stay weak, and the correction is gradually lost. The surgery would have been wasted.
What an occupational therapist does on board
Becky Chaplin works with patients through recovery: exercises, splinting, hand therapy, and relearning the ordinary movements of daily life - dressing, eating, carrying, writing.
Much of it is done through play with the younger patients, because a five-year-old will not complete a set of repetitions but will chase a ball.
Preparing patients for going home
Rehabilitation also means preparing families to continue the work after discharge, in homes and villages without therapists. That handover is part of the clinical plan, not an afterthought.
