School students enjoy “hospital days”
Every Thursday at 11am, a group of Central Takaka School students, accompanied by family members and supported by their teachers, ventures down the road to the community hospital to read their favourite books the patients.
Once a term they also entertain patients with a concert or a performance, says school principal Liz Batten, and this term they will perform parts of the school production Jack and the Organic Beanstalk. “The children are amazing. In the beginning, they were quite frightened of the old people. We told them that sometimes the old people cannot react, but that they were still listening,” said Mrs Batten.
“Not everybody has their grandparents around the corner and some of the children don’t have any contact with old people at all, and we get them to touch their hands and to feel their skins. It is very special and we’ve had some really touching moments. I had one little girl who was a bit scared but once she got reading she was fine, and afterwards she said to me that the old people can hear you inside and were listening with their hearts.”
The enjoyment goes both ways and has subtle moments of success, said Mrs Batten. One elderly patient, who had not communicated for a long while, began to recognise a particular girl who visited regularly, and suddenly began to move her arms. One little boy spent memorable times reading to his grandfather, who later passed away. A stroke patient who cannot speak or make any eye contact but nevertheless can hear thanks the children by making a long sound.
Mrs Batten said there were benefits for the children too, such as increases in their confidence, their reading skills, and the development of their emotional intelligence.
“Once they start going over, the children definitely look forward to Thursdays. They call it ‘hospital day’.”
Teacher Siobhan O’Hara said that some children had great confidence, some were more reluctant and others were quite frightened when visiting the hospital, “but when they come back they are all fine”.
“All children have a turn reading and some want to go back more than once.”
The residents’ families and hospital staff support the visits and encourage the children to come along. Psychologist Petra Janchen, who works part-time at the hospital as an activity co-ordinator, says it “takes a community to care for the elderly and chronically ill people.”
Petra believes the hospital day presented a win-win situation for both the young and the old. People who learn to give in this way when young have a good chance of accepting their own suffering at some point in their lives, she said, and it was important for the older patients to feel they were still part of this world and the community and to have a sense of belonging.
“This is reciprocal giving and taking, and the old people act as role models for us all. Emotional intelligence develops when caring for others and when we begin to read emotions in the facial expression of others. Emotional intelligence is complex and there are a lot of intelligent people out there who have no emotional intelligence. It is nothing you can study; you only learn it from being with other people.”
The wider public can also enjoy the performances of Central Takaka students at their whole school production, which runs from 17 to 19 June at The Playhouse. The production of Jack and the Organic Beanstalk, which teacher Andrew Wooster directs, is full of fun and laughter, promises Liz Batten.
Tickets ($5 adults, $3 children) can be purchased from the school office.
Ina Holst
