Window Washers At Children’s Hospital Change Into Superheroes To Surprise Young Patients

i want to make them better costumes…

That’s so damn cute.

This would be great if it had been done without promoting the hospital and a comic book character. Although some or all of the kids who saw the window washers in Spiderman costumes were impressed, a hospital is not a place for photos to be taken and released to the media.

The real question is, would the cost and general effort of this project have been undertaken if the only people to benefit were young patients?

Faith in Humanity… rising…!

Forget the media, branding, and politics for a moment and just think about how excited the kids who saw these heroes must have felt during their time in the hospital. I think that’s just brilliant.

These guys are copycats, the Spider-Man window-washer thing has been done before. However, that doesn’t make it any less cool for the kids in the hospital.

That makes my two sizes too small heart go all melty!

so much awww <3

I speak for everyone here when I say: You’re an Asshole

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!! That is good!

This should have been done without the media, branding and whatever political influences went into it. Then it would have been great.

There should be serious ethical reforms in pediatric healthcare. The young girl — an advocate for women’s education — who was shot by the Taliban in Pakistan has been photographed in the hospital, and the picture has been posted on the internet. The Taliban have threatened to make another attempt on her life, and although the security at the hospital is reported to be very strict, she is being treated as indiscreetly as many other children whose hospitalizations become newsworthy.

Right now there’s a campaign to create a “Beautiful Bald Barbie” to comfort young cancer patients. The cause is worthy, but the strategy isn’t. The people who are promoting it have used Facebook to post videos and photos of sick kids. While the idea behind Beautiful Bald Barbie is to encourage self esteem in those children, the kids featured on the Facebook page are at risk of being ridiculed by their peers.

Our society is so accustomed to ignoring boundaries with children that we fail to recognize when vital boundaries have been crossed.

The ideal purpose of a comment section is to offer different perspectives on an issue. Name-calling and claiming to speak for others offers nothing. Anyone can do that.

If you interpreted my comment as suggesting those kids shouldn’t have had the thrill of seeing a comic book hero, please allow me to clarify. I believed the project would have been noble if it had been done without the publicity. Sick children should never have their privacy compromised. They are dignified human beings who are entitled to basic respect.

You do realize Bovine that the press could actually be good for the hospital. Now, I’m not saying I don’t get your point of view because I do. However, I also think that by allowing a little publicity they may just be helping raise awareness of the hospital, and therefore donations to it. Yes, the kids do deserve respect, but they deserve good health even more. If advertising a little happiness for the hospital brings in additional donations that just might save a life, then I’m all for it.

Yes, I have thought about how publicity affects a hospital’s patient care budget.

Personally, I know nothing about the hospital featured in this story and I won’t speculate on how that angle affects this one hospital’s situation.

I do know of one particular pediatric hospital (in a different region of the country) which has exploited patients in the most vulgar ways possible, in at least one case ignoring a judge’s gag order. The gag order had been issued to protect a premature baby who was the subject of a custody battle after his mother’s death. That same hospital has also gone as far as to announce when they admit patients who are victims of attempted murder, when the suspects aren’t in custody. Even the hospital’s most dogged apologists have a problem defending that. Somehow, that hospital manages to pay for huge projects unrelated to patient care, while occasionally cutting care to save money.

We should consider how a hospital’s public relations practices affect one other aspect of patient care: When an institution’s relationship with the media is too chummy, the media are disinclined to report negative stories about the institution. News journalists should never be in the awkward position of shrugging their shoulders and saying, “You gotta dance with them that brung ya.”