Selborne kids take on doctor role

MORE than two dozen pre-primary school pupils were hosted by Life Beacon Bay for the Hello Hospital campaign to ignite interest in a career in healthcare from an early age.

Yesterday morning 26 children from Selborne Preparatory, accompanied by two teachers, confidently walked the corridors of Life Beacon Bay and asked a host of questions when they were shown around.

Bruce Janssens, regional manager of the Life group, said: “This is freely available for all schools to book and come and visit us. It is our way to get children comfortable with the hospital setting so that if they ever have to be admitted, then at least it is not a scary experience.

“We also want to ignite an interest in medicinal studies at a young age,” Janssens said.

Three children clad in cute nurses’ outfits or in doctors’ or patients’ garb led the group from the front as they toured the paediatric and maternity sections.

The future medical staff also got the opportunity to examine their “patient”.

“Doctor” Ndimende Bolotini, 6, used his stethoscope to listen to his five-year-old patient, Elijah Everts’ heartbeat. “Nurse” Kamva Peter gave the patient an “injection”.

Janssens said the tour was aimed at building a relationship with the children so that they keep a good relationship with the hospital.

“This is an educational opportunity to teach the children about good hygiene and constantly washing their hands. Also, children are quite impressionable so we want to teach them good habits from an early age,” he said.

The tours were started at St Dominic’s but have since been moved to Life Beacon Bay after the maternity and paediatric units were moved.

Asked by hospital staff why they thought it was important for doctors and nurses to wash before treating patients, one child said: “So that you do not make the sick people more sick with your germs.” —