A 12-year-old girl invents "Medi Teddy" that hides an IV bag and helps to calm young hospital patients
For a child to get sick and end up in the hospital is an experience that can be very scary.
Instead of the child's home, they are surrounded by hospital corridors and strangers; and then, of course, there are the treatments and medicines that make everything even more frightening.
This same experience is what happened to Ella Cusano, a 12-year-old girl from Connecticut, in the USA, who at the age of seven was diagnosed with a very aggressive autoimmune disease.
Since then she has been constantly in and out of hospitals and medical facilities, undergoing treatments and therapies.
Nevertheless, this little girl still wanted to draw from her condition the inspiration to create something beautiful and positive.
via cbsnews.com
During the hours spent in hospital rooms, she found that she focused on observing the IV drip, an accessory that is nearly omnipresent during hospital treatments.
Ella says she recalls that the first few times the IV drip, with all its tubes and needles, had frightened her very much. So, she started wondering if it was possible to make an IV drip more pleasing to the eye?
So, one day the young girl managed to get scissors and a hot glue gun and she began to cut and adjust one of her stuffed animals. And the result was the prototype for "Medi Teddy", a cute teddy bear that hides the IV drip bag without hindering the work of the doctors and nurses.
In fact, the cute Teddy bear covers the IV drip bag (and with it the fluids contained within, often unpleasant to look at), but still gives the nurses the ability to control the level and flow just by observing Medi Teddy's uncovered back.
Given the enthusiasm of the doctors and staff at the sight of her original sketch, she decided to pursue her idea, by patenting her Medi Teddy idea and organizing a fundraiser to donate them to children's hospitals.
A simple idea but one that can make hospital stays for young patients much less traumatic.
