There are many children’s hospitals, but this Seoul Children’s Hospital is a little different. In this hospital, there are many children who have been abandoned by their parents at young age and have been hospitalized for a long time. Although it’s called a children’s hospital the patients range from age of 3 months to even 30 years old. Some patients were hospitalized for over 20 years.
The volunteer goes to the hospital every Sunday and help out the hospital rooms by cleaning their beds, cleaning their drinking bottles, washing their teeth, wiping their faces with wet tissue, etc. Most of the patients in this hospital are unable to move and they are mostly sleeping or just blinking at the ceiling.
However, this time, the volunteers were able to work in a different hospital room at the very top of the building. This room had patients who were able to move and even communicate with other people. There was an age range of 3 months to 20 years old. Some patients were on the bed but rest of the patients were freely moving around. The volunteers were able to help them read books, play with the toys, feed them food, take care of their bottles, and other things that made them happy.
The whole volunteer service is for four hours, but those hours went by very quickly. The children there were very welcoming and didn’t let go of the volunteers when they were leaving. These children live without parents and are mostly inside the hospital room unless they are going to therapy sessions in other rooms in the hospital. They don’t get the chance to go to the outside world and interact with other people.
“I do feel bad for these children, but they still seem very happy and enjoyable even in here. I guess the only thing I can do is just play with them and give them care and love that they didn’t receive from their own parents,” said the nurse, Hye-Jin Park.
This experience allowed the volunteers to see how they should be thankful of their circumstances and should give more love to children who need help.
