Life Ready Physio + Pilates was founded in 2011 with a simple dream of raising the bar of our profession. At the core of why we do what we do, we wanted to move people towards their best quality of life, and by people, we meant our clients, our staff and our communities.
Life Ready Open House is our pro bono physiotherapy initiative and after years of it being a dream, we launched the program at the beginning of 2018.
The idea was to be able to give everybody the “Life Ready experience”, not just those who could afford physiotherapy, private health insurance, or those eligible for Medicare or other programs. There are increasing numbers of Australians living below the poverty line who cannot afford three meals a day, let alone a physiotherapy session. We have increasing numbers of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers who are not eligible for Australian citizenship and Medicare cover.
In 2017, we asked our staff if they wanted to “give back”, and there was an overwhelming response of “Yeah, that’s awesome. Let’s do this!” That’s how we got the go ahead to start this program that we’d been talking about from the beginning of Life Ready.
We have partnered with four beautiful non-for-profit organisations; Helping Little Hands, CARAD and Sporting Chance — and with the support and assistance of local GPs, our practitioners volunteer their time in our clinics throughout Perth and Melbourne to make themselves available in providing the full Life Ready experience to the less fortunate in our communities.
We accept referrals from GPs for patients who they deem appropriate for this program and we provide a minimum of three sessions per referral, and more at our physiotherapists’ discretion.
Taking care of women who have fallen on hard times, or refugees who can barely speak English has added a whole other element of meaning and impact into our organisation. Our staff are engaged and are proud to be a part of what we are trying to do.
“I am so proud that we are giving an opportunity to people to come and use our services that would never in their wildest dreams be able to access it” – Jess Ellison, COO.
