From The Orange County Register
Story – Staff Writer
Being a patient at Children’s Hospital of Orange County won’t keep kids from going to the movies.
CHOC recently opened a small movie theater on the second floor of its Bill Holmes Tower so patients and their families can watch new releases and classics alike.
The movie theater is part of the hospital’s Child Life Department, which helps patients and their families cope with hospital life with activities such as the hospital’s radio station, playrooms and pet therapy.
The hospital had been showing movies in patient rooms and will continue to do so. But the theater provides the opportunity to get out of bed and have a more-normal moviegoing experience, said Stephanie DeMello, the hospital’s child life manager.
“Aside from being an incentive to feel better, it’s a respite,” DeMello said. “It’s a moment to not be a sick kid.”
The room includes high-quality projection and sound. There are 12 chairs with space to add chairs and have patients watch from wheelchairs or beds.
Movie posters for “Madagascar,” “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “War of the Worlds” and “Zathura” decorate the walls. A movie-theater-style popcorn machine stands in the back.
CHOC was unsure of how many other children’s hospitals have theaters, but Lollipop Theater Network, the nonprofit supplying CHOC’s movies, works with hospitals throughout the country to hold movie screenings of new releases on TV and in theaters.
Contact the writer: 714-704-3771 or rkheel@ocregister.com
