Special lessons for young patients

NOTHING could distract Nurul Sofiya Irwan’s focus on her lesson for the day — not even a visit from the Deputy Prime Minister’s wife Puan Sri Noorainee Abdul Rahman.

After shyly smiling for photographs and having a quick chat with Noorainee, the 11-year-old was back to being engrossed in her studies at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre (UKMMC).

Nurul Sofiya is one of the young patients benefiting from the school-in-hospital project, which aims to enable children admitted in hospitals to continue receiving an education.

Nurul Sofiya’s mother, Wan Haritini Wan Zakaria, said the project had been a source of motivation for her child.

“She has brain cancer, and has had four surgeries so far; every time she comes in for treatment, it’s a long stay at the hospital.

“Although she has never complained about her condition or treatment, I can see that she is usually quite withdrawn and bored during her stays at the ward.

“It’s so good to see her enjoying herself here ... she’s such a strong child and I’m very proud of her,” said Wan Haritini.

The project was initiated by Noorainee through a Nurul Yaqeen Foundation initiative, Projek Hati Nurani, in collaboration with the Education and Health Ministries.

Following the pilot phase of the programme at Hospital Kuala Lumpur’s Paediatric Institute, Hospital Ampang and Hospital Serdang in 2011, there are currently a total of seven such schools in Selangor, Johor, Pahang and Kelantan.

Each school-in-hospital has nine teachers and two support administrative staff catering to patient students at the pre-school, primary and secondary school levels.

Patient-students are not only taught Bahasa Malaysia, English, Mathematics and Science, but also given time to be involved in recreational activities.

Noorainee said she was pleased with the success of the project and that three more schools-in-hospitals are scheduled to be open by mid-2013.

“We are in the process of completing the necessary renovations for the school at the Sultanah Fatimah Specialist Hospital in Muar, Johor so it can open in April.

“We also hope to open two more schools-in-hospital in July; one at the Sarawak General Hospital in Kuching, Sarawak and another at the Likas Women and Children’s Hospital in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.

“Hopefully, we will soon have at least one school-in-hospital in each state,” she told reporters after her visit at the UKMMC school-in-hospital in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur.

Noorainee explained that the initial hospitals for the project were picked for their high number of child patients.

“There’s since been a lot of interest from other hospitals wanting to replicate the project. One of the challenges is that some of these hospitals are old, so they don’t have enough space for the children to have a good learning environment.

“Our focus is on government hospitals as these families are the ones who really need the additional support,” she said.

She added that as of February, a total of 16,839 children have benefited from the project.