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Shriners Hospital Offers Kids Rehabilitative Services For Traumatic Injuries

Shriners Hospital for Children in Springfield, Massachusetts, is opening a new inpatient rehabilitation service that provides therapy for children recovering from complex injuries.

The inpatient unit is licensed for up to 20 beds and can help children who are recovering from traumatic injuries, such as to the brain or the spine.

The medical director of the new unit, Kerstin Sobus, said children who receive rehabilitative services do better in the long run.

"This unit is a place where kids can come and they receive physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy 15 hours or more per week to help them regain their function, be more independent, hopefully, when they return home and to the school," Sobus said.

Lee Kirk, the administrator of Shriners Hospital for Children in Springfield, said the only other pediatric rehab units like this in Massachusetts are in Boston.

Nancy Eve Cohen is a former NEPM senior reporter whose investigative reporting has been recognized with an Edward R. Murrow Regional Award for Hard News, along with awards for features and spot news from the Public Media Journalists Association (PMJA), American Women in Radio & Television and the Society of Professional Journalists.

She has reported on repatriation to Native nations, criminal justice for survivors of child sexual abuse, linguistic and digital barriers to employment, fatal police shootings and efforts to address climate change and protect the environment. She has done extensive reporting on the EPA's Superfund cleanup of the Housatonic River.

Previously, she served as an editor at NPR in Washington D.C., as well as the managing editor of the Northeast Environmental Hub, a collaboration of public radio stations in New York and New England.

Before working in radio, she produced environmental public television documentaries. As part of a camera crew, she also recorded sound for network television news with assignments in Russia, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba and in Sarajevo during the war in Bosnia.
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