Background Occupational therapy has a pivotal role in the organization of health care, and improves health and quality of life by facilitating participation in meaningful occupations [1, 2, 8, 9]. The steep rise in non-communicable chronic health conditions and the aging population (which are typically not curable through traditional medical approaches), have resulted in significant limitations in daily participations [5]. This calls for the involvement of the currently, underdeveloped and also underutilised occupational therapy services [6]. Occupational therapists use activities to impact patients' physical, sensory, cognitive, psychosocial, and emotional health, through patient self-management, joint-protection, splint-fabrication, adaptive-technology, wheelchair-modification, mindfulness, lifestyle activities and environmentalmodification are fundamental to patient population [7-9]. The growth of the health profession contributes to better, newer services and more expanded rolesincluding women's healthcare. A basic element driving its profession to advance in its deliveries, is 'job-autonomy'-a concept closely related to workers' motivation, satisfaction and well-being [10], which can translate to better performance and subsequently, effective care for patients [11]. Professional autonomy or, the right to use discretion and judgment within the scope of practice of a profession, or an individual's freedom to exercise professional judgment in practice activities [12, 13] has been observed as one of the numerous key challenges faced by occupational therapists in an entrenched medical model across Asia. Although some physicians justified 'job-autonomy' as fundamentally essential for good patient care and embedded it in the national governance ■CASE REPORTS