WITHIN A few days after the start of the war in October, Limor Eshayek got into her car and drove four hours from Jerusalem to Eilat, where members of two of the in the Gaza envelope had been evacuated. “It was like walking into a house strewn with broken glass; everyone was broken,” she recalls. Eshayek is a , trained to bring joy and hope to sick and fearful patients.
She’s worked as a medical clown for 15 years, accompanying severely, even terminally, ill children. “But nothing I experienced could have prepared me for that,” she states. Despite the silly nose and goofy costume, medical clowning is no joke.
The practice has proven effective in reducing pain, anxiety, and stress. Eshayek, 54, whose “nom de clown” is Perla and does regular shifts in Jerusalem’s , belongs to Israel’s veteran nonprofit Dream Doctors organization. Founded in 2002, Dream Doctors has more than 100 members who work with medical teams in partnership with 33 medical centers in Israel.
These salaried medical clowns visit patients unaccompanied and are considered members of the medical teams. They accompany physicians on their rounds and sometimes assist in medical procedures. It is silliness in serious settings.
Their wacky appearance serves to make the clowns non-intimidating members of the medical team. The Dream Doctors’ members generally work in hospitals, but since the war that began in October they’ve been visiting communities of displaced Israelis all over the country, eva.