The power of play can never be underestimated especially when it comes to aiding a child’s recovery from surgery or adjusting to a clinical based setting. It is this ethos that is to the fore of the Ulster Hospital’s Play Specialists Team who carry out an invaluable role in the South Eastern Trust.
The Play in Hospital team works closely with families and their children, from birth up to 18 years of age, within our healthcare setting. Their holistic approach acknowledges that healing extends beyond medical treatment.
Engaging in play and recreational activities helps keep young minds focused and provides distractions, which in turn, can aid in pain management. ‘Play in Healthcare Week’ is an annual awareness showcase that emphasises the importance of providing the opportunity, space and time for play to children in hospitals.
Paediatric Play Specialist Sharon Pauley explained how the Team use, “Play with children and young people to help aid their recovery and help with communication between their families and other staff members here on the Ward. We offer the children and young people as much choice as we can, whether it’s toys, arts and crafts and games,” said Sharon.
“Seeing what the patient needs individually is crucial and being able to provide them with normalising appropriate activities, to help them settle into the environment, is extremely important. We use play to help the child understand their treatment when we do therapeutic hospital play based interventions.”
Mum Niamh McDonnell praised the Play Team and described how Sharon and Gillian Sinclair helped her little boy Danny while he was waiting for his treatment.
“Playing really helped keep Danny entertained as he was becoming agitated from not having any food or drink while waiting on his surgery. The Playcare Specialists have been great, they have been really good to us.”
Sharon continued, “As part of our own Play in Healthcare week, we are trying to reflect the broader spectrum of all the playful engagement that happens on the Paediatric Ward, as well as an outpatient setting and in the community.
“Even though we have Health Play Specialists here at the Ulster Hospital, in the community there is a wide range Multi-Disciplinary Team that will always use playful engagements with their children and young people and even good recreation activities for adults in their care.
“There really is a whole spectrum of people that can be positively impacted by having playful engagement in and out of healthcare settings.”