Build-A-Bear and Starlight Foundation bringing new furry friends to sick kids at Perth Children’s Hospital

Scans and blood tests could be a scary experience for six-year-old Bonnie Hill but thanks to a special team visiting Perth Children’s Hospital she came away with a new furry friend.

Build-A-Bear volunteers visited the Starlight Express room at PCH on Tuesday to give sick kids a chance to enjoy a heart ceremony — a workshop where the children bring their new teddy to life by putting a heart inside it.

For Bonnie getting to make her teddy meant she left the hospital with happy memories rather than thinking about her appointments.

Her life has been filled with appointments at the hospital since she was diagnosed with a neuroblastoma ganglioneuroma — a large benign tumour in her stomach — when she was four.

Her appointments include visiting the oncology ward for blood tests and scans to check the tumour hasn’t grown back as well as appointments at the renal ward as removing the tumour left her with kidney damage.

“When she was getting her ultrasound done, she was asking when she can make her bear,” Bonnie’s mum Lauren Hill said.

“It took her mind off the appointment and now she will leave the hospital in a really good mood.

“We’ve never had that relation coming to hospital with a bad experience because of the Starlight team.”

Starlight Foundation experience producer Katie O’Halloran said the workshops happened in children’s hospitals across the country on Tuesday.

“Hospital is a pretty scary place and it’s not always associated with good memories so our goal running things like this with Build-A-Bear is to really transform the hospital experience,” she said.

“It means that coming to hospital ends up being a little bit less scary because last time they came they got to make a Build-A-Bear and that was really exciting.”