An animal therapy program at a psychiatric hospital in France is providing major improvements in care outcomes for patients.
This is reported by the patients themselves, observed by hospital staff, and presented by the program organizers, who now want proper research done into the practice to help standardize it and allow it to be available more broadly across the country.
Compared with the horse, the donkey definitely suffers from stereotyping across human culture and folklore. But it’s fair to say this is a pretty unjustified rap, since the donkey has been with us far longer than its taller, rangier cousin the horse.
Domesticated two-thousand years or more before a horse ever felt the tug of a rein, donkeys are often used as therapy animals because of their gentle, social, and intelligent natures—owed perhaps to this long history of cooperation with humans.
Every Friday at Ville-Evrard hospital complex, in Neuilly-sur-Marne, near Paris, patients suffering from psychiatric disorders, anxiety, loneliness, and other ailments get to visit the hospital’s wooded farm sanctuary for a therapy session with a therapy donkey.
Donkeys were bred to bear tremendous burdens over long distances—the anxiety or even schizophrenia of the patients is no sweat for equines like Nono, Pitou, Oscar, Manolo, or Malraux, who will pull some of the patients around in carts, offer their hooves for a nice cleaning to those who are a bit more confidant, or just quietly nuzzle others who need a good nuzzling.
Patients attend free of charge, and several described it as a valuable change of scenery which brings “relief.”
“Talking with people, taking part in activities I wouldn’t normally do, it helps me in my daily life,” said a patient, 52-year-old Jérôme. “It helps you break away from the routine of treatment and medication. Staying at home isn’t good for me.”
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Married couple Ermelinda and François Hadey launched the project for Ville-Evrard, and the first donkeys trained by François arrived in 2016. Ermelinda, a psychiatric therapy nurse, strongly believed in animal therapy. The couple determined that donkeys would be the perfect choice, but the program has grown to include all kinds of critters, including goats, turtles, rabbits, guinea pigs, chickens, and doves.
Alicia Fabi, an 18-year-old nursing student, told the Associated Press that the activity gives patients a chance to leave the hospital environment.
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“Every time we come back from the activity, they say they feel good, calm and relaxed, and that they enjoyed the outing. That’s really positive,” she said.
The hospital and the Hadeys are looking to have proper scientific research performed on the donkey therapy program. Their hope is that it can be offered more broadly across the country.
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