PHOENIX (Good Morning Arizona) — One of the toughest moments a family can experience is having a child fighting a serious illness in the hospital. The Phoenix Theatre Company has a unique way of helping those who are going through that moment, thanks to a group of actors who call themselves Partners That Heal. They visit sick children and put on a show.
[WATCH: Making the youngest patients laugh]
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“They bring on a whole dimension to the hospital,” says Wendy Pauker with Banner Thunderbird. Some of the kids, they are here for overnight. Some of them are here for days. When Partners That Heal go into their rooms, you hear laughter coming out of the room. You hear families being so thankful for seeing their child smile or laugh.”
The actors play games and get the patients to interact with them. “They’ll see kids from as young as 2 up to 18 or 19 years old,” Pauler said. “They’ll go into the room with a little bit of history of the child, and just, off the top of their heads, know exactly what is going to be the fun and appropriate things to do with those kids.”
Partners That Heal wants the patient to be a child and to feel “normal” again. Sadly, in some cases, they say it can be for the last time.
“For me, it’s very personal when it comes to creating positive imagination for patients who are stuck in rooms for lengths at a time,” Pasha Yamotahari, the group’s artistic director. He spent time in hospitals as a kid himself, which is why it’s important he says, to hit that goal. “Make that room become something more than just a stale hospital room, an actual place for imagination to just go free.”
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“The first time that Partners That Heal came in the door, I lit up right away because I knew we were in for a treat,” says Bernadette Carroll, whose daughter battled Hodgkin’s lymphoma five years ago. The second-grader had to endure excruciating chemo treatments once a week for eight months. Bernadette’s little girl is cancer-free now, but she will never forget the experience of Partners That Heal. “It’s mostly laughter through tears because you are just so relieved someone is coming in and bringing joy to the room,” Carroll says.
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