Sidra Medicine Redefining Hospital Experience For Young Patients And Families

(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Fazeena Saleem | The Peninsula

DOHA: At Sidra Medicine, the Child Life Team is redefining the hospital experience for young patients and their families with a focus on psychosocial wellbeing. This dedicated team works to ease the emotional and psychological challenges that arise during healthcare encounters by providing tailored support to patients and families.

The Child Life Team offers special events that bring together patients from different wards. These events focus on inpatients, siblings and families who are not on isolation precautions. 'Funday Monday' is one such event held four to six times annually and is led by the Child Life Services at Sidra Medicine.

According to Jennifer Lugg, Child Life Specialist II at Sidra Medicine, these 'Fundays' provide the opportunity to bring together patients, siblings, and families during hospitalization. 'Fundays” promote socialisation, normalization and provide child friendly, fun and engaging activities for patients.

“Often children and families feel isolated in the hospital environment due to limited opportunities to socialize and interact with others. Seeing other children and families going through a similar journey helps to validate feelings and loneliness,” Lugg told The Peninsula.

“Children also feel left out of day to day fun activities that their peers may be doing outside the hospital, therefore, these days are a way to provide some normalcy. Funday Monday offers activity stations based on a theme that promotes mobilization, play and fun,” she added.

'Funday Monday' activities vary and are adaptable to be inclusive of children ranging from 2-18 years old, who may be walking or using a wheelchair or stroller. Stations typically target different developmental skills from gross motor (bean bag toss, ring toss, mini golf, football), sensory exposure (salt dough fossils, sensory fishing game), observation skills (eye spy), deduction skills (matching, puzzles) to activities such as photo booths to provide a photo memory of the day.

This month's theme for 'Funday Monday' is 'Superheroes'. In the past, themes have included Under the Sea, Sports, and Dinosaur Day.

A recent 'Funday' event was held in the Healing Gardens at Sidra Medicine and provided patients and their siblings the opportunity to get out of their rooms, normalise the hospital environment, socialize with other patients and have fun.

During the event children had the opportunity to create and wear superhero capes and masks, show their strength like the character Hulk, target practice with a shield, take a photo as a keepsake, find hidden pictures around the gardens and a sensory-based puzzle activity. Patients had the opportunity to create superhero certificates as recognition for caregivers and hospital staff.

The Child Life team continued to offer 'Super Hero' activities to isolated patients and siblings throughout the remainder of the week to maximize the number of patients to be able to participate.

Focusing on the importance of the event and the wellbeing of the patients Lugg said,“The Child Life Team at Sidra Medicine is a team that focuses on the psychosocial wellbeing of patients. The team aims to support patient coping during health care experiences. They do this by providing age appropriate information to the child regarding the medical experiences they are facing, supporting patient during stressful experiences, helping patients and families cope and providing opportunities for children to continue to develop while admitted.”

The Child Life team promotes emotional safety which recognizes and promotes resiliency, healing and trust for children in the health care environment.

“This can include helping parents explain a diagnosis or procedure to the patient or sibling or helping a child cope with a needle poke. This also includes helping children and their families cope with being away from home and possibly other family members and helping to maintain that attachment,” said Lugg.

“Children and families can be hesitant to mobilize after surgery or when the child is sick. When medically appropriate, participation is highly encouraged as mobilization promotes healing and leads to shorter admissions. Having patients out of their rooms can improve motivation and mood as well. These events are a fun way to mobilize patients out of their rooms, off their wards and have fun,” she added.

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