CHONGQING (CQNEWS) -- Just in time for the summer holidays, hospitals are experiencing a surge in selective surgery for children. Faced with surgery, injections and medication... children are inevitably scared and parents are inevitably anxious. To ease fears and anxieties, the Children’s Hospital of Chongqing Medical University has a new trick to soothe children! Check out the following photos. 

Mickey, Minnie and Donald Duck... The Disney cartoon images on the walls come to life and the bookcases are filled with cute dolls and colorful picture books. This is the “Disney Fun Room”, set up in the Inpatient Department of the Liangjiang Area of the Children’s Hospital of Chongqing Medical University.

Why does the hospital have this room? “It is a soothing space for children. While doctors treat children’s illness, the room helps to relieve their psychological burden,” the head of the Social Work Department of the Children’s Hospital of Chongqing Medical University said.

“Reach out your hands and do it with me!” A social work intern from Southwest University was teaching children how to wash their hands properly.

“Just smile. Bacteria are afraid of smiles!” Xuan Xuan (a pseudonym) has just finished her infusion and has come to the Room to play. She likes to play with her big sister, an intern in the Room. “It’s fun and makes me forget the pain of the injection.”

A 14-year-old boy was hospitalized for an acute appendicitis after a summer of overeating. He pushed his own bottle of medicine to the Room when he had his infusion. The social work interns chatted and played with him, making the difficult infusion time easier and more enjoyable because of the games.

Bei Bei (a pseudonym), aged 3, was hospitalized for a week. When he was crying, his mother took him to the Room to play. The tinkling of the piano was lingering. He was not a little patient, but a “piano prince”.

“Social work is a professional activity of helping people.” This is how Liao Dusi, a student at Southwest University, understood her profession. She and her classmates, who worked as social workers at the Room every week, used their knowledge to provide services to the families of children with illness.

For psychological problems that cannot be solved by medical technology, professional social workers are needed to provide medical and humanistic care. The Social Work Department believes that the presence of the Room makes children’s medical services more warm.

A parent was standing outside the door of the Room, quietly watching her child play in it. The social worker guided the child on how to cooperate with the therapy through the games. The parent at the door breathed a sigh of relief, “As long as he cooperates with the therapy, I feel much less anxious.”

Drawing, playing the piano and building blocks in the Room... The children’s artwork was made into “postcards” by the hospital. Their whimsical ideas create memories of the Room and are a testament to the warmth of the medical service. (Translated by Wang Huixin, Fathom Language Limited)