Sunce osiguranje supports the Teddy Bear Hospital initiative

Today, the Teddy Bear Hospital initiative was held at Cvjetni trg in Zagreb, designed to help preschool children overcome their fear of doctors. This initiative was jointly organized by the student organizations European Medical Students Association (EMSA) and the Student Section of the Croatian Medical Association.

“Who is still afraid of doctors?” is an interesting slogan of this year’s Teddy Bear Hospital, a project that was jointly launched five years ago by EMSA and the Student Section of the Croatian Medical Association, two student organizations that share similar goals and have been closely and actively collaborating since 1999. Volunteers from these two organizations, all medical students, engage to reduce children’s fear of hospitals and medical staff. The event at Cvjetni trg has been held annually for the past five years, but these volunteers operate year-round and visit Zagreb kindergartens once a month through this initiative. The goal of this project is to reduce children’s fear of visiting the doctor and to bring hospitals and the hospital environment closer to the youngest patients. The organizers claim they want to show children that illness and the fight against it are part of everyday life and do not necessarily have to be associated with unpleasant and painful experiences. In the initiative, children aged 3-7 are assigned the role of parents, their teddy bear or another toy is their sick child, and a medical student is entrusted with the responsible role of a doctor. While waiting, children have access to a playroom where they can socialize and be creative.

Students allow children to use various instruments available to them, such as an otoscope, stethoscope, and blood pressure monitor. In this way, children are given the opportunity to experience doctors and the environment as positive and fun, which reduces their fear in case they are afraid of doctors or provides them with their first pleasant experience if they are not familiar with medical staff and the hospital environment. The long-term goal of this project is to create positive attitudes towards the realization of basic health rights and the use of healthcare among the wider population. Numerous sponsors have enabled the continuation of this project, including Roditelji.hr, Moje Dijete, Bubašpara, etc. One of the sponsors of the initiative is Sunce osiguranje, which joined the initiative with Sunčica – a children’s policy of Sunce voluntary health insurance and the new Pediatrics Department at the Sunce Polyclinic in Jarun to support the initiative and emphasize that quality health care starts from a young age. (Zlatko Salahović)