December 2008 Parisian parents welcome the Teddy Bear Trust for addressing children’s anxieties when being admitted to the hospital. The Teddy Bear Trust will seek to be able to hand out a free teddy bear to every child who’s admitted to a hospital in Paris. The teddy bear will bring comfort to the child, while doctors and nurses can also use the teddy bear as a proxy when explaining the illness and medical procedures to the child. Also, the teddy bear can act as a substitute parent or comrade when the parents aren’t able to be at the hospital, or when it is occasionally too hard to be there to comfort a perhaps seriously ill child. Psychologists have applauded mr. Bjorn Stiedl, Danish repeat entrepreneur and businessman, for having come up with the Teddy Bear Trust (Foundation Ours en Peluche). After the idea was first aired a couple of months ago, Parisian parents have heard rumours of the Teddy Bear Trust, and are beginning to ask healthcare workers if they know anything about it, and if there is a teddy bear for their child. Mr. Stiedl comments that, â€this clearly shows the need for a project such as this. For a child, being hospitalized is not only about getting well but about getting through the entire experience unscathed. And trust me, a one-month hospitalization for a five-year-old is virtually a life-long experience. Having a teddy bear to share the experience with may very well be more efficient than God knows how many pain-killersâ€, Mr. Stiedl concludes. Patrick, father to a 4-year-old daughter who has been in the hospital for three weeks suffering from Meningitis, was thrilled about the idea: â€Thank God my daughter is getting better, but having had a teddy bear comrade in the past three weeks would have been ideal. She has been going in and out of consciousness, and it wasn’t always that her mother or I could be here. We have three other kids and live in the suburbs outside Paris, and it’s not really advisable to travel between Paris and home after nightfall. And if she was awake at night, there was no-one to look after her. With the Teddy Bear Trust, there could have beenâ€, Patrick finishes. The Teddy Bear Trust expects to be able to hand out the first teddy bears before summer.
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