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News - Advocate Lutheran Gen Hosp, Park Ridge Illinois USA |
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| Advocate Lutheran Gen Hosp |
| Humor cart volunteers bring smiles to patients, patient’s families and staff at Advocate Lutheran Ge |
| Date : - 06/04/2009 |
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What is brightly colored, loaded with silly games, bubbles and magic tricks and travels from room to room throughout the pediatric and adolescent units at Advocate Lutheran General Children’s Hospital to spread good cheer? It’s the humor cart.
Colorfully dressed volunteers, wearing fun hats and aprons announcing that ‘Health is a Laughing Matter,’ elicit smiles, giggles and belly laughs wherever they go by performing magic tricks, blowing bubbles and telling jokes. The specially trained volunteers have been offering this program at Lutheran General since 1998 when Beth Polonsky of Arlington Heights and her friend Donna Mermel of Northbrook attended a Jewish Women’s International conference that highlighted a similar humor cart at Shriner’s Hospital in St. Louis.
“We knew we wanted to bring this program to Chicago,” Mermel said.
Mermel, whose son Craig is a pediatric leukemia survivor, knows firsthand how therapeutic the effects of laughter can be. Now 26 years old and studying oncology research at Harvard, Craig was diagnosed when he was 12 and underwent three years of treatment.
“Anything that could take our minds off of why we were at the hospital was welcomed relief. To sit and laugh with our child allowed us some sense of normalcy,” Mermel said.
Nursing staff keeps a look out for patients and their families that could use a visit from the humor cart volunteer. Visits can be a couple of minutes or longer, if needed.
“What’s special about it is the reaction from not only the patients, but their families as well,” Mermel said. “They are wondering, worrying and waiting. We can’t change their situation, but we can readjust their focus for a few minutes. Laughter and good humor provide both emotional and physical benefits.”
The humor cart program has eight volunteers who rotate through the pediatric and adolescent units on a weekly basis. Lutheran General is in need of more volunteers to staff the hospital’s new patient tower opening in June 2009. If you or someone you know would like to volunteer for this program, or other volunteer opportunities, call the Volunteer Services office at (847)723.6105.
Advocate Lutheran General Hospital is a 617-bed teaching, research and referral hospital, a Level I trauma center, and one of the largest hospitals in the Chicago area. It also is home to Advocate Lutheran General Children’s Hospital, the only children’s hospital in the greater north and northwest suburban area of Chicago and a major regional referral center for a broad range of infant and pediatric services.
Lutheran General has been recognized 10 times as one of the 100 Top Hospitals and 15 top major teaching hospitals in the country. For nine consecutive years, Lutheran General was rated by US News & World Report as being one of America’s Best Hospitals, and received ‘top 50 in the nation’ rankings for medical excellence and advanced capabilities in many specialties.
The hospital also was the first in the north and northwest suburbs to be awarded the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s prestigious Magnet designation, the highest honor and level of nursing excellence in the nation.
Lutheran General Hospital is part of Oak Brook-based Advocate Health Care, which is the largest health care provider in Illinois and among the nation’s top health care systems.
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| Reference : - www.advocatehealth.com/luth/ |
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