Huron Expositor, 2007-07-25, Page 8Page 8 The Huron Expositor • July 25, 2007
News
Volunteers clown around to bring laughter to the sick
Susan ll u n d e r t w a r k
Dressed as Do -Do the care clown,
Dorothy Medd, of Seaforth, once entered a
hospital room to find a very depressed
older man and his distressed wife.
On her volunteer rounds to help cheer
up patients, Do -Do shared a few of her
silly jokes with the man - like showing off
her engagement ring of three carrots and
her collection of diamonds (from a deck of
playing cards) - and went on her way.
The wife came out of the room in tears
of gratitude and told Medd she hadn't seen
her husband smile all week. And, the
medical staff who had been trying to get
the patient on his feet all week, were final-
ly getting some cooperation after Do -Do's
visit.
"A lot of patients are really quite down
and I always get back as much as I give,"
she says of her six years as a care clown for
the Huron -Perth Healthcare Alliance.
Care clowns have been working at
Stratford General Hospital since 1993 and
while one of the clowning program's
founders Pat Willows tried to start up a
downing program in Seaforth about eight
years ago, it never took off
With 20 volunteers at its peak, the
Stratford care downing program is now
reduced to four downs who visit patients
in pairs twice a month.
But, this fall Willows is hoping to again
offer care clown training at each of the
Alliance's four hospitals in Seaforth,
Susan Hundertmark photo
DoDo the Clown and Marie Proctor, of Clinton share a laugh at Seaforth Community Hospital dur-
ing a recent local visit by the care clown to staff and patients at the hospital.
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ting people to do it," says Willows.
Care clowns are different from circus
downs or party downs because their focus
is bringing a smile to patients in hospital
or residents of nursing homes.
They offer humour as a form of healing
and therapy and are sometimes the only
visitors patients receive.
Willows, who began downing after her
husband died, took a clown training course
because she found that while she could not
laugh during her grief, her down personna
Beany could.
"Research proves that humour helps.
There are so many physical changes that
happen when you're sick and when you
laugh, things get released and all kinds of
good stuff happens," she says, adding that
89 per cent of illness is caused by stress.
Willows, who used to work as an
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accountant and called her
clowning self Beany as a
reference to her bean -count-
ing days, says she's gradu-
ally had Beany take over
more and more of her per-
sonality.
"It's a passion with me. I
don't want to see this pro-
gram shutting down - it's
too important," she says.
Anyone who wants to
get involved as a care down
must go through an eight-
week training program
where you learn both how
to down and the elements
of hospital protocol you
need to follow in order to
deal with infection control
and the vulnerability of
patients.
"It takes time and a lot of
training to develop yourself
as a down. And, it takes a
very high energy to do this
work both mentally and
physically," says Willows,
who has taught care down-
ing all over Ontario and as
far as Nova Scotia.
Care clowns usually
work in pairs so they can play off of each
other and be the brunt of the jokes.
"You always ask for permission to enter
the mom and we never make fun of the
patient. The patient is our buddy," she
says.
Visits are short and silly, with a smile or
a laugh from the patient as the aim
Care clowns do not visit to talk to the
patients about their illness or to provide
any kind of medical help.
"We're there as a distraction. If, all of a
sudden, this live cartoon comes into your
mom, you can't be as sick as you thought
you were," says Willows.
While there used to' be some resistance
to care clowns when the program first
started, Willows says there are few areas
of the hospital where they aren't welcome
anymore.
"We go into emergency on request,
intensive care and palliative care cautious-
ly and for some reason, they don't want us
in the operating room - I think it's the size
15 shoes," she jokes.
She says care clowns are also there to
give some stress relief to medical staff.
See CARE, Page 19
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