Singing rhymes and dancing, they tour the wards of a children’s hospital in the national capital every week, while patients, their parents and caregivers cheer and applaud.
They are the ‘medical clownselors’, a group of volunteers who dress up as clowns, and visit the halls of Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya at Geeta Colony in East Delhi every Saturday.
Coming from different walks of life, they do their best to spread joy in the thoughtful and sometimes intimidating environments of the hospital.
They call themselves ‘medical clowns’, a mix of clown and counselor.
They come to this children’s hospital on Saturdays and engage with sick children, their loved ones and the nursing staff through their humorous acts.
Clownselors is the brainchild of Sheetal Agarwal, a native of Hisar in Haryana, who started doing medical antics in July 2016 in the national capital.
“My obsession with smiles led me on this journey. I met Dhara in Ahmedabad at one of the retreats where she performed as a medical clown. She intrigued me, I went back and looked up what it is.
“I found the whole concept fascinating and wanted to experience the joy of sharing smiles with those who need it most. Nobody was doing this in Delhi and I really wanted to do it. This is how the Clownselors Foundation (a non-profit organization) was born,” Agarwal told PTI.
We were lucky to start our work with Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya from Delhi as it is a children’s hospital.
“Since the first horseplay, we have had experiences where parents shed tears of happiness seeing their child smile or eat after many days. The response has been overwhelming,” Agarwal said.
Clowns visit hospitals, nursing homes, schools, and corporate offices to manage stress.
“When we make children laugh with our funny acts, it also helps boost their immunity,” said Abhishek Bansal, who works with a private company in Noida and engages in medical antics at the hospital on Saturdays.
Echoing similar views, Komal Touranni, a Delhi University student and medical clown, said medical antics also act as distraction therapy for patients.
Medical antics bridge the gap between physical and mental health care in hospital settings, according to clownselors.
Not only for children receiving treatment at the hospital, but also for their guardians and nursing staff, medical antics are a great relief as they help reduce stress and anxiety, said Sarthak Gandhi, another clown doctor.
“It feels good to see them (the clowns) perform,” said Anita, the mother of one patient.
It helps lighten the mood since people are usually stressed in the hospital, he added.
“These volunteers come to this hospital every Saturday and make people laugh with their act,” said Gurjeet, a nurse at the hospital.
Another medical clown, Simran Juneja, expressed his happiness to be part of this initiative.
“I’ve been a clown for the last three years. It seems to me that this therapy seems to be working on patients,” Juneja said.
(Disclaimer: This story is automatically generated from a syndicated feed – only the image and title may have been modified by www.republicworld.com)
$(function(){$(“.horizontalScrollContainer”).on(“mousewheel”,function(e){this.scrollLeft-=e.originalEvent.wheelDelta,e.preventDefault()});$(document).on(“click”,”.switch-section”,function(){var i=$(this).attr(“data-section”);$(“https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/#”+i).show(500).siblings().hide(),$(this).addClass(“active”).siblings().removeClass(“active”)});}); try { window.addEventListener(“load”, function() { var scripts_loaded = !1; scripts_loaded || $(window).on(“scroll”, function() { if ($(window).scrollTop() / ($(document).height() – $(window).height()) * 100 > 10 && !scripts_loaded) { scripts_loaded = !0; googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-1573487803805-0’); }); ; ;; !function(e,n,t){var o,c=e.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];e.getElementById
