Clowning around in Mayo University Hospital

RARELY a Tuesday goes by without Mayo University Hospital (MUH) being mentioned in the News pages – not always in a positive light.
The Mayo News has pulled no punches in outlining the deficiencies at MUH and the giving voice to those who do not get the service they deserve in Mayo’s biggest hospital.
But no more than in any other hospital, the doctors at MUH work night and day to heal the sick and distressed, striving to discharge a happier and healthier patient than the one they first treated.
Last Tuesday morning, we spoke to two new recruits who only prescribe one kind of medicine: laughter. Meet the clown doctors.
Sorcha Nevin (Dr Aon Dó Trí) is already dressed up and in character by the time she sits down with Matthew Largent (Dr Machew) in the hospital foyer.
“I find it difficult to act normal when I’m dressed like this,” Sorcha tells The Mayo News after removing her red nose and putting down her mini-tambourine.
They don’t have any medical degrees, but their quirky, easy-going personalities and backgrounds in drama, theatre and dance make them perfectly qualified for this job.
“There’s been a couple of times when it’s just been the most heart-melting thing to see a child to go from, at the beginning of us entering the room, to – maybe ten, fifteen minutes, half an hour later – going from being not wanting to engage to ending up them leading the whole thing and having everybody in the room involved,” says Sorcha.
Clown doctors are not unique to MUH, or even to the Irish health system.
More formally referred to as ‘therapeutic entertainers’, these modern day court jesters have been bringing comfort, joy and laughter to children all over the world for many years.

Treasure
Matthew and Sorcha donned their red noses white coats thanks to Aoife’s Clown Doctors, a non-government-funded charity founded by Áine and Adrian Kendrick, who lost their five-year-old daughter, Aoife, to cancer in 2012.
Throughout that ‘traumatic’ summer in Crumlin Children’s Hospital, Aoife’s spirits were kept up by the hospital’s very own clown doctors.
“We have a lot of traumatic memories of that time,” Áine once said in an interview. “But because of the clown doctors visiting Aoife, we have lovely memories and we have fun memories, and they gave us that, and that’s our treasure.”
Though Aoife’s little body has gone, her spirit lives on in the small army of funny men and women who entertain sick children in hospitals across the country all year round.
“It was almost like you were auditioning for the circus,” Matthew recalls of starting out, “but at the same time there was a deeper level to the auditions. You could tell from the get-go, it wasn’t just jokes and laughter, there was an undertone there about the seriousness of what we would be doing and the ability to reign the humour in when needed.”

Passion
Sorcha and Matthew are a really charming double-act. Though their roles are identical, their characters are quite difficult.
“She’s my Paul McCartney to the John Lennon, she’s very whimsical whereas I’m a little bit more serious, scientific,” smiles Matthew, who has performed lead roles with Castlebar Musical & Dramatic Society in recent years.
Passion is the main thing you need for this job, according to Matthew. But with that passion comes a degree of sensitivity, given that no two children and no two ward rounds are the same.
“For me, if I walk into a room and the parent and child are there and they are both on the phones, I don’t want to walk in and see the parent and think ‘I have to get him to put his phone away, I have to make sure he’s watching this’,” explains Matthew.
“I know that I’ve done a good job if I’m going in there and I’m doing a part and that phone goes down on its own.
“At the end of the day, if the child would prefer to watch their phone than me, I’m not going to force my humour on him. It’s very much patient-led, is what my approach would be. You run off what the patient needs. If the patient looks like they are enjoying it, you keep going until you think that they’ve had enough, but at the same time there is no point in trying to force humour.”
And it’s not just the clowns, kids and parents who get a kick out of it. Staff have even been known to ask when the clown doctors are coming back, hoping that they’ll be rostered to work that day.
“There is touching moments in different ways, be it as a child using sign language to express his thanks to us, or be it a parent – and they don’t even have to say anything,” explains Matthew, “but you can tell by their look that they are thankful that you’re there, that you can see a certain amount of joy in their eyes, the fact that you’re there, they are looking at their child smiling at you. You don’t need to be told ‘thanks’ or to be acknowledged in any way to kind of feel pride in that, you can just see it from the parents’ expression.”
“I would say there have been moments that have gone very much to my heart where I have gone away and had a cry and thought about particular children many, many many times,” adds Sorcha.

Merriment
The pair make merriment upstairs in MUH for two hours once a fortnight but they have also brought giggles to hospital wards across Co Galway.
“There’s people I’ve met already who have gone ‘You should be here every day’, but the funding simply isn’t there,” explains Sorcha. “The health service needs more resources in lots of ways but the therapeutic entertainment, I foresee, it’s just going to keep growing and growing and growing.”
“I would welcome more of us with open arms,” chirps Matthew. “I would love a day when you can walk in this hospital and you never know when you might see a clown doctor to walk around a hall. That would be brilliant if that could be a daily occurrence, you’d see a lot more smiles, I truly believe.”
We are just about to take our leave of ‘Dr Aon Dó Trí’ and ‘Dr Machew’ when a boy called Rhys Togher walks up to the big revolving front door with his mother, Jo.
The little warrior is initially reluctant when Dr Aon Dó Trí tosses him a tiny beanbag. But from the moment her furry finger puppet pops his head out to say hello, his face lights up with delight and thoughts of his impending appointment are instantly forgotten.
One 30-second interaction was all it took to send that child into hospital with a smile on his face.
Sometimes, laughter really is the best medicine.

To find out more, visit www.aoifesclowndoctors.ie.