After almost seven years in business, Hands on Therapy closed its doors last Friday.

Owner and practising physiotherapist Shirlene Dill said she was forced to close after receiving notice from her landlords and failing to find alternative premises .

Ms Dill said she received notice from her King Street landlords to vacate the premises three months ago, although they gave her an extension until the end of January.

She has been looking everywhere for a suitable spot, but found there was very little suitable space available.

“I don't really want to go further than the hospital,” she said. “But there is nothing out there.

“The place that could have worked for me, was a place that the landlords only wanted to rent for a year, for $45 per square foot, plus $150 per month service charge.

“To construct walls and make rooms for only a year was simply not worth it. Other than that I've had no real prospects, because the building needs to be wheelchair accessible or an elevator.

“So, that is why I am frantic and maybe someone has space to sublet me.

“The rents are really, really high and I looked at one space and I had to apply for it, so I won't know if I was successful for a couple of weeks.

“It is like have the space for about $100 more. Either way you look at it, even if I am able to continue my business it will not be as we currently know it.

“We currently have 1,500 square feet, but we need a minimum of 800 to 1,000 square feet.”

Asked if she would consider charging her clients more to deal with the increased rent, she said: “I really don't up my rates because people come to physiotherapy like two to three times a week and it is a lot of money for people to have to fork out. It is not like a doctor's office where you see them once in a while.

“My patients have always told me to increase my rates because I have over 20 years experience, and I have been doing it forever, and I have the expertise, but I charge what everyone else charges.”

Her staff members stayed with her to the bitter end and are now looking for new jobs.

“I have a very busy practice and I am losing all my staff because I don't know where I am going,” she said.

“I'll at least try to carry on with my current patients. A friend of mine, who is a massage therapist, has two rooms that I can use. So on a scaled down version, I may try to continue to see my patients because I can't just drop them.

“A lot of them come to me for specialty problems because I do a lot that conventional physiotherapists don't do, like women's health obstetrician/gynaecologist exams from a physiotherapy perspective.

“We also do a lot of inter-oral work for Temporal Mandibular Joint disjunction or syndrome.

“We also do Myofascial Relief, which is a primary motor treatment, which works for a lot of stuff that traditional physiotherapy does not.

“So we have quite a steady referral source from doctors offices and not to mention my revolving door patients.”

Her patients are unhappy that the King Street practice will be closed, she said.

“They are all like, ‘What are you going to do? You can't just drop it'.”