More than hip service for children over three decades

Professor Eric Ho with Sandi Lee Holland and her family as they celebrate 30 years of paediatric hip screening. Picture by Ethan Hamilton

A HUNTER woman says seeing her children do what she couldn't "means everything", as John Hunter Hospital's paediatric hip screening service celebrates 30 years.

Sandi Lee Holland was 12 months old when she was diagnosed with hip dysplasia. After receiving treatment on and off until she was eight years old, Ms Holland said she started experiencing hip pain at 16 and at 28 had a hip replacement.

"Even now, two years after replacement, it's still not 100 per cent," she said.

Due to hip dysplasia (DDH) being largely hereditary, Ms Holland made sure to have her first child, Sophia, screened through Professor Eric Ho's Paediatric Hip Surveillance Service when she was born seven years ago.

Gregory O'Connor, a sonographer in Professor Ho's hip screening service, gives Abbey Harden the all-clear for eight-week-old daughter Rosie Tselembis.

"She was put in a brace at 12 days old, treated for 12 weeks and she's now hip healthy," she said. "She does karate now but I think that if she wasn't treated at a young age she wouldn't be able to. I never would have."

Gregory O'Connor worked at the John Hunter Hospital for 30 years prior to becoming head sonographer at Belmont. Part of his job involves conducting ultrasounds on newborns as part of Professor Ho's service.

"The first 12 weeks of life is the best time to treat it because the hip matures a lot quicker," Mr O'Connor said. "The service has treated 65,000 babies since it started and within six weeks most of those babies will have been cured of hip dysplasia."

In 2010 and 2012, Mr O'Connor travelled to Austria to learn world-class paediatric hip ultrasound techniques from Professor Reinhard Graf, which he now teaches across NSW.

All four of Ms Holland's children have been screened for DDH as part of Professor Ho's service, which he established at the children's hospital 30 years ago. Through different types of hip bracing, three of the four children have had their DDH corrected with one of the 15-month-old twins, Bella, undergoing the final stages of treatment.

"It means everything. I don't want them going through what I went through," Ms Holland said.

Professor Ho said he established the service after seeing a number of undiagnosed cases come to him after the crucial 12 week period.

"Cases decreased in the first 10 years but since then the number of late stage cases we are seeing has dropped to almost zero," Professor Ho said.