A physiotherapist has been cleared by the Physiotherapy Board of a complaint that she did not have parental consent to perform controversial chest-clearing therapy on a baby who was subsequently brain-damaged.
Auckland man Scott Davidson laid the complaint against National Women's Hospital physiotherapist Margaret Davidson, who introduced "chest-tapping" therapy to the
hospital in 1985 after seeing it used abroad.
Mr Davidson's daughter, Alyss Monroe-Davidson, was given the treatment -- also called "cupping" or "percussion" -- as a newly born baby.
Alyss, now nine, has cerebral palsy, uses a wheelchair and can barely speak.
A disciplinary hearing held by the Physiotherapy Board in November last year found Ms Davidson acted "in accordance with widely accepted physiotherapy practice" at the time, the board said today.
The board found no proof of negligence or misconduct and the charge was not upheld, it said in a statement.
The hearing concluded a "thorough and rigorous" investigation into complaints about use of the therapy at the hospital nine years ago.
In 1999, chest-tapping was the subject of a Queen's Counsel-led inquiry after 13 premature babies, who had the treatment between 1992 and 1995, suffered brain damage. Five of them died.
It was stopped when doctors discovered an unusual brain lesion in a cluster of children.
- NZPA
