The First Zolan Room for Painful Procedures Opens in the Pediatric Cancer Hospital in Italy

A space can become Atmospheral space when it is cared thinking of he who has to enter it, the Child and his mother enter the Painful Procedure Room, and they are embraced by Donald Zolan's Paintings hanging on the door and on the walls, creating a new space within a space, creating a new Aesthetics, called Percettology.

The Child entering with his mother perceives, smells and tastes, hears and touches, sees and feels an Atmosphere created, shaped, shaded just for him softly, sweetly, gently. The more softness, sweetness and gentleness is high, better is, because the Child perceives comfort, passion, compassion, cure and care. Each painting represents a Child within an exterior space, in the gardens, at the seaside, outside the house, playing with puppies, or small pots of flowers, collecting daisies, holding a very small ball, washing a small car, sitting on the outside stairs: moments of feeling, events of meaning, where time is the canvas which keeps the Child's thinking, perceiving, gesturing and signing. Every Child painted in these paintings reflects, combines, acts, enacts, protects what he is touching and feeling, building and listening, composing and decomposing.

These paintings are windows of hoping and opening for EveryChild invited to enter the room in order to be cured. And what these paintings ask for is the quietness and softness of caregiver's behaviour. There cannot be discrepancy between caregiver's behaviour and by the atmosphere surrounding him, simultaneously. The Child undergoing the painful procedure perceives what is happening in him and around him, but if for only one second, his eyes are focusing their attention on one of the details belonging to each painting, something positive is born inside his inner nature, and this positivity is translated into his activity of thinking, of babbling, of living that moment as if it had been built just for him. Just for him.

University of Studies of Insubria of Varese – Italy
Luisella Magnani

World Paediatric Hospice and Paediatric Palliative Care Day

Let's look at children's eyes, children in urgent need, children in pain and in suffering. Let's look at their eyes, let's interpret the feeling of meaning in their eyes, let's consider their glance, let's reflect on it, let's wear a hat for them, today, and ever day in our passion and compassion, in our thoughts, words and actions, let's wear a hat.

As Joan Marston, CEO of the International Children's Palliative Care Network, said... it is essential that we continue to advocate for the development of children's palliative care globally. What lies within the word advocate? Within this word there is the latine verb vocare, whose meaning is to call. It's the call, not a call. It's the call of our presence in the child's cradle, it's the call of our being for him, undestanding him deeply, creating always a positive atmosphere despite anything and against anything, thinking of that child as if he were the only child on earth, giving him our presence as if our presence, coherence, and adherence were his dresses and thinking if I were that child in need? And, if that child in need were my child? These are the two questions which are calling for Every Health Care Professional's consciousness.

Let's wear a hat today, and imagine to wear that hat every day, as the symbol for Each Child in need in the World. Let's look at these Donald Zolan's Paintings, the children are wearing a hat for other children, a hat in order to protect that child, and that child could say, I thank You for wearing a hat for me, because I cannot wear a hat, I don't have a hat, but if I Know that Your hat is worn for me, then that is my hat, my heart's hat.

Friday, 2nd October 2015
Luisella Magnani