Shortly before moving to Ely, Alyth learned of Children in Distress, a small UK based paediatric palliative care charity, which had a remarkable reputation for changing the lives of Romanian infants and children, born with congenital and life-threatening conditions, or who were living with HIV AIDS. Many of whom had languished from birth with little or no care, being written off and regarded by the authorities as beyond help.

She joined its family of care, initially as a donor, then as a child sponsor, then volunteered to be a visiting consultant therapist, to share her insights and professional skills gained throughout her career as a senior physiotherapist in the NHS.   Invited to assist and devise treatment plans Alyth revolutionised the care and treatment therapies for bed bound infants and children previous made comfortable but untreated, more often than not clearly racked with pain and enduring severe muscle spasms or rictus from cerebral palsy and strokes. By concentrating on the therapy treatments, the posture support and exercise of the children, the difference was immediate and so tangible to nurses and carers of the children that Alyth was taken to their hearts.” Miss Aily” as she became known, was adored by the children, and beloved by the hospice and community-based therapy centre’s doctors, nurses, therapist, and support staff.

Alyth soon realised that she needed to share her skills more widely, not just with the regular teams of young student therapists who came to see her work but on a much wider scale. So, calling on former colleagues and friends she organised open invitation workshops and a range of conferences to spread the word particularly demonstrating Bobath techniques and the neuro-developmental rehabilitation that she had learned first-hand as a student of Berta and Karel Bobath.

By bringing international experts to share the latest techniques and therapies, Alyth soon earned the respect not only of the students and qualified professional therapists who flocked to the conferences but intrigued the Deans and Professors at the National Therapy College, who had been isolated from modern treatment techniques though-out the forty plus years of the Ceausescu  regime. They sought her insights and expertise and so impressed were they, that they offered Alyth a visiting lectureship and honorary professorship, which she modestly decline as she was “too committed to the children.”

Alyth was a lifelong advocate of best practice and a great ambassador for Children in Distress. As a Trustees of Children in Distress she greatly influence her fellow trustees, and when she suggested that it was time the charity’s mission statement was reviewed, they readily agreed.

She recommended the Hippocrates dictum” To Cure sometimes, To treat often, To comfort always” be adopted. No finer tribute can be made to Alyth than to say that she lived by this motto throughout her life and in doing changed the lives of thousands who reached out to her for help. Alyth- Romania’s “much-loved Miss Aily” will be cherished and remembered for all that she achieved and the untold lives she touched and changed.