A new multi-disciplinary paediatric medical and healthcare centre has recently opened in Oxford Falls.
The KITE Centre, standing for Kids Integrated medical, Therapy and Education, was established to reimagine children’s healthcare, with the whole notion first conceived by Mona Vale’s Skye Rose. While having spent 20 years working as an environmental scientist, it was the arrival of Skye’s first son that caused her to realise the holistic need for precisely what KITE now offers.
What inspired you to set up the KITE Centre?
My eldest son was diagnosed with neurological disability at age 2. I was taking him, along with his newborn baby brother, to nine different medical and allied health professionals all over Sydney. The travelling was exhausting, but exposing my son to new environments, with uncertainties and frustrations, like parking, where was the entrance? Was a pram possible? Was it safety gated? I had anxiety, as did he, and he was a runner which complicated it more! Other families were experiencing similar challenges. I asked his doctors and therapists, “Why aren’t all these medical services integrated?” Their response, “In a perfect world they would be.” As newly appointed MP Dr Sophie Scamps noted in the July Tawny, “I realised I had to stop waiting for others to act.”
How did you progress your grand plans?
My son’s first Occupational Therapist, the amazing Beaches local Kerry Gibbett, gifted me a notebook, suggesting I start creating the perfect centre. All my son’s doctors and therapists agreed to join if I did. The research began.
How did you overcome your lack of specific medical expertise?
For over 20 years I’ve worked in the environmental/sustainability field. One of my roles was strategic sustainability planning, which requires integrating the many different disciplines of local government to focus on a strategic approach to sustainability. This experience was key, as my role in the KITE Centre is to integrate allied and medical health professionals for a child’s beneficial outcome.
What have been your biggest triumphs?
Creating KITE the Centre itself for the community. It has brought together an amazingly diverse, talented team of passionate and enthusiastic practitioners across general, developmental, sleep, respiratory, neonatal, clinical neuropsychology, psychology, audiology, speech pathology, optometry, physiotherapy, nutrition, occupational therapy and more! But the most amazing, when people tell me about this incredible new children’s health centre in Oxford Falls called KITE, unaware that I created it!