Yuko Morita at TEDxShimizu (transcript)
Why we need more dogs in the hospitals
Summary
The title really surprised me because I didn't like dogs but I didn't know about facility dogs also so I was a typical Japanese person who considered that dogs should be outside houses, of course, outside hospitals and being patient was a virtue in the hospitals. I was sorry that I didn't know anything.
The speaker works with a facility dog as a handler of a service dog to support kids and their families who are suffering from incurable diseases emotionally.
In fact, facility dogs are positive influences for those kids and their families and working commonly in Europe and the US, though, facility dogs had been totally unprecedented in Japan which has a culture that dogs should be outside houses, of course, outside hospitals.
A facility dog is considered as medical staff not only to heal mentally but also cure physically. A facility dog creates great bonds with not only patients but their families and handlers. Especially patients' Kids can have courage enough to hang in the hospital. Handlers trust facility dogs thus the dogs also trust handlers and they can work together. If kids have to leave this world forever, facility dogs can heal to their parents.
Curing diseases don't seek an only high medical level. It requires mental satisfaction and a quality hospitalized life.
Facility dogs can create an environment which is healing disease proactively. It must mean a good hospital.
This is the answer why we need more dogs in the hospitals.
Words in the story
unprecedented / never done or known before
troublesome /adj/ causing difficulty or annoyance
proactively /adv/ (of a person, policy, or action) creating or controlling a situation by causing something to happen rather than responding to it after it has happened