One-year-old La Luna is becoming a fixture at Burnaby Hospital and that seems to make the patients and staff very happy.
La Luna is a bunny — a rare 10-pound English Angora bunny to be exact.
Leela Densa, La Luna’s owner, brings her pet to the hospital once a week for patients to cuddle, stroke or just watch.
“There are certain things that you can get from animals that you can’t from human beings,” said Densa.
“Person to person you can’t express too much, there are certain things we hold in, but with pets, people seem to let it go.”
Some patients aren’t animal lovers, so not everyone wants to hold La Luna, but according to Densa, overall the response has been overwhelmingly positive.
Densa recalled one senior patient who was sitting quietly with his family. No one was talking to each other, but once La Luna was brought in, everyone started connecting.
“They started talking, they started sharing and there were smiles,” she said.
Densa, who works full time as a recruiter for an employment agency, got involved last year with B.C.’s Pets and Friends program, a not-for-profit organization that matches pets with patients in medical centres, after noticing how passionately people in her south Burnaby neighbourhood reacted when they saw La Luna, then just a bunny, out and about.
“One day we were walking on the street and I saw this gentleman in a wheelchair and I didn’t know him, but when he saw La Luna, he gave a big smile and asked to pet her,” Densa said.
Other passersby crowded around and asked to hold or take pictures of the bunny. Kids too came running to see the furry white creature.
La Luna seemed to respond well to the attention so the incident made Densa wonder if her cherished La Luna could be useful in health care somehow.
After a lengthy screening process, which La Luna “passed with flying colours” Densa and La Luna started visiting several wards at Burnaby Hospital every Sunday.
La Luna is a favourite on the seniors’ acute care and psychiatric wards.
“What it adds for these patients is a distraction or a comfort,” said Clare O’Kelly, manager of volunteer resources at the hospital.
“It takes their mind away from what is happening that may not be pleasant, and takes them away to a different place,” she said.
O’Kelly said for some patients the bunny brings back memories of happier times, perhaps when they were younger and had a pet of their own, and that too gives them a break from the routine and stress of a hospital stay.
But La Luna isn’t just popular with patients. The hospital staff too has really taken to having La Luna visit.
“Working in the hospital is a really crisis driven job and then here comes this rabbit for a visit. It allows them to step back for a moment,” said O’Kelly.
Not all bunnies are cut out for a job in health care though. Densa has three other rabbits, but they try to crawl away after a short time being held or they become jumpy.
La Luna has an especially calm and gentle temperament.
“People sit there with her for two hours and pet her and take her picture, she doesn’t mind,” Densa said.
Densa is one of 400 volunteers at Burnaby Hospital. She said for her the reward of seeing people perk up when they see La Luna means everything.
“I like helping people,” she said.
