Sir, \u2013 Today is International Day of Play (June 11th) and is an opportune time to highlight the real value of play for children and young people in our hospitals. <\/p>\n
Play is not a discretionary activity but a fundamental right. A growing body of research demonstrates that play reduces stress, builds resilience and supports both physical and emotional recovery in healthcare settings. <\/p>\n
The role of play in a child\u2019s healthcare experience remains significantly undervalued and underfunded. There are not enough play specialists or play resources to adequately support the number of children and young people receiving hospital care in Ireland. <\/p>\n
Play Volunteers from Children in Hospital Ireland are doing an incredible job at bridging this gap, generously giving hours of their time each week to ensure children have access to play in hospital, whether that is in the children\u2019s hospitals in Dublin or in the paediatric units in hospitals across Ireland. <\/p>\n
We want to see a stronger commitment and investment from the Government to ensure every child in hospital benefits not only from high-quality medical care but also has access to the healing powers of play. Investing in play is investing in children\u2019s health, improving recovery outcomes and their overall wellbeing.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, we owe a sincere debt of gratitude to the Play Volunteers who help transform the hospital experience for so many young patients and their families. \u2013 Yours, etc,<\/p>\n
ANNA GUNNING, <\/p>\n
CEO, Children in Hospital Ireland, <\/p>\n
Dublin 18.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir, \u2013 Today is International Day of Play (June 11th) and is an opportune time to highlight the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,263005,84,392],"class_list":["post-730127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-children-in-hospital-ireland","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}