MultiCare Good Samaritan Hospital’s Children’s Therapy Unit (CTU) is celebrating its 50th anniversary of operation this year, celebrating a half century of offering a unique and necessary service to its community. The unit helps infants, children and adolescents with special needs — such as autism, cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy — become as functional and independent as possible. The unit sees about 2,500 patients for year, which equates to roughly 40,000 total visits.
For years, the CTU was in a basement space, before the current facility was built in 2000. It is the state’s oldest and largest hospital-based neurodevelopment center, and since it opened its doors, it has helped more than 30,000 patients.
The CTU — which is connected to the MultiCare Mary Bridge Pediatric Neurosciences Center — includes a therapeutic playground, a pool, a gym, a garden and many therapy units. The current building was constructed with the goal to find what motivates a child to stick with his or her therapy program, said Marianne Bastin, director of pediatric therapy services at the CTU, in a recent news article in the Puyallup Herald.
“Possibilities is what the CTU connects to,” she said in the article. “You don’t know what the outcome of the child will be, so we don’t establish limits here. If the child wants to do it, we find a way. That’s why our program looks the way it does. It’s a very unique program that has this great combination of services under one roof, without families having to travel.”
Providing this care to our state’s youngest residents is crucial. It truly makes an impact on their lives and on our state’s future. Congratulations to MultiCare Good Samaritan and the CTU for reaching this milestone!
Click here to read more in an article from the Puyallup Herald, and click here to learn more about the CTU. (Tim Pfarr)
