The 'Piros Orr' Clown Doctors Foundation from Hungary and the Nas Rosu (Red Nose) Association launched the Clown Doctors project in the city of Targu Mures, intended to help children cope with medical procedures and make them forget their fear of doctors.
The first medical facilities visited by the project team were the Targu Mures County Clinical Emergency Hospital, the Mures County Clinical Hospital, as well as the headquarters of the Alpha Transilvana Foundation.
"The event marks a new beginning: we plan to bring the Piros Orr (Red Nose) Clown Doctors to Romanian hospitals, focusing for now on Transylvania. We have already taken the first steps, through visits to the County Emergency Hospital in Targu Mures and a workshop organized at the Alpha Transilvana Foundation's headquarters. This way, they saw what the clown doctors actually do. The hospitalized children were thrilled," said president of the Nas Rosu Association in Targu Mures, Csatlos Károly, noting that despite a certain reluctance at first, the medical staff were also very excited and got into this game. "The idea of the workshops is for doctors and nurses to know that although it seems that the clown doctors are just joking and doing shenanigans, everything is precisely calculated," Csatlos Károly told a press conference.
He explained that the Clown Doctors have been working in Hungary for 27 years now, have studies and experience and have come to the conclusion that "some children even don't need to be given painkillers anymore, because the clown doctors calm them down so much and lure their attention elsewhere."
"The focus shifts elsewhere and they are no longer scared, they are no longer afraid of an IV needle. When a child comes for surgery, the clown doctors wait for them in front of the door and accompany them throughout the hospital all day, until they enter the operating room. This has a calming impact and the child forgets their fear," said Csatlos Károly.
This year, the Clown Doctors will return to Targu Mures three times, and if they manage to secure additional financial resources and new partnerships with other hospitals, the program could expand in 2026.
"Our goal is to make this program as broadly known as possible and to create opportunities to reach even more hospitals, more children in need. But for this, we need the support of the community and sponsors, and we are counting on the help of the media to spread the news about the initiative to as many people as possible," said Mattyasovszky Zsolnay Bencze, executive director of the Piros Orr Clown Doctors Foundation in Hungary.
"One of the child's most important form of manifestation is play, and their entire mental activity is shaped, developed and restructured under the influence of play. Through play, children are goaded into paying more attention and participating in communication. All children understand the language of play. Humor is another way of establishing a spontaneous, warm relationship with the patient, which appeases fear and anxiety about the unknown. This is what the clown doctors from Hungary did these days, with the support of the Red Nose Association in Targu Mures - they brought games, humor and smiles on the faces of the little patients in the Pediatrics ward of the Targu Mures County Emergency Hospital, thus contributing to an important positive experience for both children and their parents. We thank the representatives of the Nas Rosu Association in Targu Mures for choosing the Targu Mures County Emergency Clinical Hospital for this and we assure them of all our support in the future, the common goal being to bring joy and smiles to the faces of hospitalized children and their parents, apart from providing medical care," spokesperson of the Targu Mures Hospital Mariana Negoita told the press conference.
Personnel training workshops were also held to help the medics better interact with the young patients.
"It helps us a lot, the workshops were attended by both primary care physicians and residents and some students along with medical staff, to see how this can help us in our daily work. A big thank you for this initiative," said Dr. Zsuzsanna Gall, pediatrics primary care physician at the Mures County Emergency Hospital.
The representative of the Alpha Transilvana Foundation, Dr. Alexandru Lupsa, emphasized the importance of communicating with child patients and their families, pointing out that the Clown Doctors' approach requires special skills.
The Clown Doctors also intend to visit nursing homes, and next year they want to organize workshops for artists from Mures County and Transylvania for them to become clown doctors too.
"Becoming clown doctors is a little more complicated, for this requires about 300 hours of workshops. And even after completing this stint, they have to accompany a more experienced clown doctor for one year on visits to hospitals. The clown doctors also have their psychologists, because you realize what suffering and what saddening stories they see in hospitals, in oncology or surgery departments, and to relieve their soul they also need a psychologist, because they also carry a burden on their shoulders. So yes, we want to do workshops for clown doctors here and find artists who are fluent in both Romanian and Hungarian, so that we can go to hospitals," concluded Csatlos Károly.
The Clown Doctors concept was developed by the Piros Orr Foundation, which has been active in Hungary since 1996. AGERPRES
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