Fund clown performance in children hospital rooms

Story from Rosalie, clown in the hospital.

“I am a clown, working in hospital since 11 years, but I am also the mum of a young boy who had to go through several surgical interventions since the first days of his life. I therefore know how difficult it can be when you need to have surgery. Those times are very well managed by the medical teams, but I still know how stressful they are for both kids and their parents. It’s therefore by walking on eggshells that we went as clowns, for the first time, in the surgery unit.

Here is the story of this first experience:

On this day, our clowns had to accompany a young boy to surgery.
We went to his room, introduced ourselves as Doctors Robinet and Rosalie, and pretended we were the doctors who were to operate him. The boy laughed: the introduction went well.
We then disappeared, making a pretext we were looking for a stretcher-bearer (we went in fact playing with other kids).
When the stretcher-bearer arrived, he picked us up and we went together to get the boy: “Move on, we need some space for the king who will have surgery!”. We started a procession. The King and the clowns made a show of funny faces in the lift. In the transfer room, we shared again some magic shows with the family and the stretcher-bearer.
When the anaesthetist came, we tried to be discreet, but Robinet walked on the feet of Rosalie who went one step in arrear and hurt her head on the wall. Everyone laughed of our stunts.
When it was finally time for operation, we were still laughing: “See you later mum, see you later the clowns, you will come back again, right?
The anaesthetist told us, through a nod, he appreciated the show and its impacts on the child that got destressed.

I then understood the full meaning of our project."

Links:

• Soleil Rouge website