Eileen Perrottet

Eileen Mary Perrottet (24 December 1917 – 23 November 1973) was an Australian physiotherapist, noted for her contributions to the Australian Paralympic Movement, a senior physiotherapist at Mount Wilga Rehabilitation Hospital in the Sydney suburb of Hornsby.

Early life Perrottet's parents, constant visitors and supporters of Our Lady's Home for the sick and poor in the Sydney suburb of Coogee passed on the love of that work to their three children.

Perrottet, the youngest, was educated at Monte Saint Angelo Convent, North Sydney. She graduated from the University of Sydney as a physiotherapist. She held the rank of Lieutenant, service number NFX 112337, and was a physiotherapist with the Australian Army Medical Core. George Bedbrook, the Australian orthopaedic surgeon who pioneered the Department of Paraplegia at the Royal Perth Hospital in Western Australia, was also at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, obtaining further knowledge and experience in orthopaedics, under Ludwig Guttmann, neurosurgeon and founder of the Paralympic Movement.

On her return to Australia, Perrottet went to Perth, to assist in establishing the first Paraplegic Centre in Western Australia. From there she was involved in organising Australia's first international disability sports team that attended the Stoke Mandeville Games (the forefather of the Paralympic Games), in London in 1957. Perrottet "initiated Kevin Betts' interest in working with paraplegic patients who were at the time being assisted by the hospital's rehabilitation programs".