Page 53 - Number 2 2021 Volume 74

Sylvia Kambalametore - Physiotherapist 41

Personal Reflections of a Pioneer Physiotherapist

Sylvia Kambalametore

Sylvia Kambalametore visits the University of Cape Town, 2010

Some courage, enough to be a prerequisite for venturing into uncharted
waters, must have been a part of my personality well before I started my secondary
education. I was the first ever Head Girl at Blantyre Secondary School. Before my
time, the school only had Head Boys.
After Independence in 1964, Malawi needed skilled health workers as a
matter of urgency: nurses, doctors, pharmacists, laboratory assistants,
radiographers. The planners of the time realised that Physiotherapy was a core
component of health service provision, especially in a country with high levels of
congenital and acquired disabilities. That realisation saw me being offered a
scholarship to go and study physiotherapy in Germany.
After obtaining my Diploma in Physiotherapy in 1973, I worked in the
United Kingdom and Switzerland before joining the Malawi Ministry of Health
in 1977 as the first black physiotherapist at Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
For many years, apart from a few Malawians, physiotherapy services
were provided by volunteers, mostly from Europe, the United Kingdom, United
States and Japan. This dependency on expatriate, mostly volunteer staff, was not
ideal. They came and went. With each change of personnel, there was a disruption
of service.
Many in the medical sector at the time were aware of the burden of
physical disabilities arising from communicable diseases like polio, congenital