Taking a child to the hospital

Taking kids to the doctor can be traumatizing, especially if they can hear other kids crying.

Yesterday I took my son to the children’s hospital for an appointment with the eye doctor.  My son is only two and a half, so I was unsure how the whole experience would affect him.  Fortunately, it was a children’s hospital, so there were an abundance of toys and things to do, as well as a well-equipped cafe for small treats.  All in all, the appointment went really well, though it did involve eye drops for dilation and long periods of waiting.  The only negative thing I walked away with the feeling of being able to hear too much.  There were many smaller examination rooms scattered throughout the children’s wing of the hospital and once we were waiting for the second part of our appointment, we both could hear the cries of other children as they experienced a painful or scary part of their appointments.  Hearing other children cry while we were waiting to go back in those very doors did not instill a lot of confidence in my son.  He would look at me and ask, “Baby crying?  Baby hurt?”  Even though his exam would not be painful, he started to worry a little about why those kids were crying.

Sometimes We All Need a Little Protection & Privacy

I know taking my son in to see the eye doctor is a small event in the scheme of things.  But, for us, it was pretty monumental- it was the first time there was something seriously wrong in one of our children.  What we thought was a lazy eye was a really far-sighted eye that was barely seeing anything at all.  As I processed this news and hugged my son, the last thing I wanted to hear was  someone else’s experience.

Sound Masking for Privacy & Confidentiality

A simple solution would be sound masking, in which white noise would softly hum through speakers installed directly in the ceiling tiles.  The result would be that the low-level noise would be soft enough to go largely unnoticed, but just enough to cover the noises (crying) coming from the exam rooms.  Both the waiting parents and the children would be spared the fear of pain that is a natural result of hearing others cry.  As an added bonus, speech privacy levels would also go up, so as medical professionals needed to discuss cases, questions, or results, each individual would be protected from being overheard.

As we all know the customer is king- in this case, the patient is king.  If a medical facility would like to keep their patients happy and satisfied, then a simple proactive measure like sound masking may well be the answer.