Pet Therapy in Hospitals

Posted by TeamCharlie on August 18, 2008 under Wags for Hope | Be the First to Comment

With my new found tool of bringing videos into play (no pun intended), I thought I might put this to some good use.  The video above is a nice representation of what we do at Wags for Hope, although it doesn’t capture the special moments when an animal team makes an incredible breakthrough.  Nevertheless, it is a good video and does represent us well.  I’m hoping that the powers that be in Frederick County see this, as they have yet to allow us into hospitals.  In the beginning I thought that it sort of made sense, because we had no reputation to fall back on.  Two years down the road our record is still spotless, so I feel that it is time.  The problem has been that the infection control people within the hospital dictate this decision, and rather than come up with a policy to allow animals it is apparently easier to say they are not allowed.  Besides what the video portrays, there are many applications where a therapy pet can do wonders inside a hospital:

1) Children’s Ward: Do I even have to explain this one?
2) Staging area for children’s procedures:  When my daughter was 6, she had a rare condition called osteomyelitis in her arm.  It was so severe the doctors had to rule out leukemia.  To do that they had to perform multiple tests, some of which required her to be put to sleep.  The anxiety she suffered before each test was heartbreaking for us.  A therapy dog would have done wonders in this case.
3) I can’t think of an area where a therapy pet would NOT be helpful.  I have heard stories of these animals bringing people out of comas with the entire family present. Could you imagine…

I am not naive enough to think that all that need be done is the hospitals open their doors and we walk in wherever we please.  There would have to be conditions, and special places where we would be allowed.  Other areas would be off limits.  At NIH they have a vet check each animal before it comes in.  The point is they do this because they see the value.  It took eleven years for National Capital Therapy Dogs to get into NIH.  I hope we don’t have to wait that long.