“Make The Child Happy” - SF Competition
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The following is an entry sent in for our monthly Silly Farm Supplies Competition!
“Make The Child Happy” - SF Competition Sent in by Lisa Leyes
Dear Philadelphia:
I am a volunteer facepainter at the Hospital for SickKids in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I have a tip for you.
I cannot carry around a jar or cup of water to wash my brushes off in, as of spreading infectious diseases. I carry two small spray bottles:
One is for spraying the PAINT with water. This makes the colors very intense. I paint on the child’s face, wipe off on a paper towel, and dip in rubbing alcohol. The second spray bottle holds rubbing alcohol. Everything in my kit must be clean, clean, clean. I go up to hematology/oncology sometimes, and I must have a sterile kit. My brushes never touch a paint after touching a child’s face. I carry a lot of brushes and natural sea sponges, as there are lots of latex allergies in the hospital. The rubbing alcohol dries very quickly in the brushes. I wait a few minutes before using again on a child’s face.
I have the best volunteer job in the whole world. All I do is make people happy. My job description is as follows:
“Make the child happy”.
If that means that I paint Grandma like a tiger, then that is what I do.
I also do special effects. It seems the most innocent, happy boys want to have the most evil, disgusting, fake pus, fake blood dripping fake wounds to scare the nursing staff. The nurses here are pretty calm, so I go to them and ask them to emote. The boys revel in the stir they create in the staff with their very real looking black eyes, bloody noses, chunks of ripped up skin, fake gangrene, etc. It is a delight to make them happy.
I am glad I hooked up with your website. I hope to share more small tips with you.
Lisa Leyes Facepainter SickKids Hospital Toronto, Ontario, Canada
P.S. My little sister lives in Nerang on the Gold Coast. I have a soft spot in my heart for Australia.
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October 22nd, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Thank you so much for posting this. I am a medical transcriptionist for 4 hospitals in our region and wanted to volunteer my services, but didn’t know how i would approach the issue of of paint contamination. Alcohol is a wonderful idea. I do carry the pads but wasn’t sure on how not to infect my brushes. Wonderful Absolutely Wonderful.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:53 am
what a fantastic job! thank you for those tips on keeping brushes clean, i paint at a lot of fairs and are very concious on hygenie, the world is a better place to have people like you bringing a bit of joy to our greatest asset, KIDS!
October 23rd, 2008 at 7:49 am
Lisa -
It is wonderful that you do this, but it is VERY unsanitary to use paintbrushes!!!! Just because you dip them in rubbing alcohol does not mean that they are clean!
I found these MANY articles online! PLEASE READ!!!
“Rubbing alcohol kills bacteria okay but is less effective on viruses. It is best if a surface is PHYSICALLY cleaned (washed with soap and water) before being rubbed with alcohol. As it evaporates, it sucks out the insides of bacteria and viruses and kills them. However, they won’t be dead until ALL of the alcohol has evaporated.”
“Rubbing alcohol does NOT sterilize”
“Alcohol is a disinfectant. It denatures proteins. It certainly WON’T
sterilize, it will NOT kill bacteria that form spores (eg.
tuberculosis, Hepatitis!!!!). It is also questionable that the alcohol is in contact with long enough for effective disinfection.”
“Rubbing alcohol might be a marginally acceptable way to clean your own supplies, but if these supplies have been handled by or used on anyone else, alcohol IS NOT going to cut it.”
(for other articles…search online! you will be shocked!)
Lisa, I beg you. Please STOP using paint brushes in hospitals! I would also recommend throwing out your paints because they are probably all contaminated!
If you continue with painting in hospitals, which is wonderful, PLEASE USE Q-TIPS! Q-Tips are cheap, DISPOSABLE, and easy to use. They are also great because you can also get more paint if you need to with the other end! You can still do great detail work and there is NO worry that you are spreading germs!
Dipping a paintbrush in rubbing alcohol is like having your doctor give the person next to you a shot with a needle, then wiping it off with alcohol and then sticking you in the arm! You would NEVER let someone do that to you, why do it to a child with paintbrushes?!?!
Alcohol is ok to use when you are a painter at fairs, birthday parties, etc, where there is a silm chance that someone has an infectious disease. Parents will NOT bring their kids to get painted if they know that there kid is infected. Face painters, such as myself, have contracts that state, “I will not paint on open wounds”. That is to prevent speading disease!
PLEASE STOP USING PAINTBRUSHES! I don’t want to see you get in trouble when a healthy kid gets infected by your paints!
October 25th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
In a couple of weeks I will be doing my first voluteer face painting venture for the our childrens hospital. Just read the posts about alcohol and Q-Tips, any other information that I need to know???? Thank you. Advice would be greatly appreciated.
October 26th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Hi Deborah,
I found this acticle online. It anwers MANY questions about face painting in hospitals, including q-tips and proper hygiene:
www.hospitalclown.com/Past Issues/Final PDFs/Vol 5-3FaceP.pdf
For more, go to their main website:
www.hospitalclown.com
I hope this helps you, because it sure helped me!
♥ Mollie the Painter
October 26th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
I’m sorry, the entire website name didn’t get posted.
Here are directions to the page:
- Go to www.hospitalclown.com
- Click on “PAST ISSUES” on the right-hand side
- Click on “Go to Volumes 1 thru 6 Descriptions”
- Scroll down to “Vol. 5 No. 3″
- Select “Face Painting in the Hospital by Shobi Dobi”
The page will open as a .pdf
♥ Mollie the Painter
October 27th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Thank you so much. I greatly appreciate it.