AWARDS GIVEN TO REIKI IN HOSPITALS PROGRAMS
by Eugenio Lepine
In this article, you will read about the organizations that are being nominated and awarded as a way to acknowledge Reiki’s importance as a Complementary Therapy.
THE SAM BUXTON SUNFLOWER HEALING TRUST
I will start with the recognition that makes me most joyful, because previous to this award I already knew the amazing job that The Sam Buxton Sunflower Healing Trust (SBSHT) does. This is why I’m very happy to tell you that Angie Buxton-King was the star at the Complementary Therapies Awards 2018, which were held in London.
The SBSHT got the best prize of them all: Overall Winner. And the organization mentions this about it: The Trust emerged as the overall winner as it set out such a clear model of how to do it: how to introduce complementary therapy into mainstream healthcare and keep it there.
Basically, the SBSHT supports cancer patients and their families by providing funds to employ Complementary Therapists (healers) in the NHS and Hospices, but if you want to know more about them, go to their website by clicking here, and please consider giving a donation.
HARTFORD HOSPITAL
If you want to know which was the first Reiki into the Hospital program that won an award, then keep reading, it’s what’s coming next.
The place: Connecticut, USA
The year: 1998
The place: Hartford Hospital
This Hospital’s administration approved the development of a Reiki Volunteer pilot program. Please take a moment of reflection here, because having a Reiki program in your hospital when the year is 1998 is huge! My eyes were wide open when I read this.
The awards arrived pretty fast. In 2001 the New England Association Directors of Healthcare Volunteer Services gave them the President’s Award for Outstanding Volunteer Program Development. And one year after, the American Society of Directors of Volunteer Services of the American Hospital Association granted them the Extraordinary Program Award.
HOSPITAL UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
In 2011, the Hospital University of Pennsylvania acknowledged the titanic role made by the Abramson Cancer Center Reiki program, as they worked into teaching volunteers and also managed to provide more than 2,000! Reiki sessions between 2010 and 2011. Because of this, they were granted with the Team Builder Award.
FINALISTS AND CURIOSITIES
Finally, I’ll write about two cases that are different from the ones above.
First, we go to Spain, my current home, where I want to talk about the Optimist Hospital National Awards. These awards are peculiar, because the nominees select a Non-profit association, and the monetary prize goes to the chosen association, via the winner.
This being said, the second Gala of those awards happened in 2016, and the Catalan Institute of Oncology (CIO) won the prize regarding the Adult Projects Category, they chose to give their respective economic prize to the Reiki Therapists Association in Catalunya.
I think this is important to point out, because the CIO is an official institution, and they chose to give their economic prize to a volunteer association that provides Reiki to their patients. This is a very significative recognition coming from an official organism and definitely feels like an award by itself.
Finally, we go back to the USA and to the Hospital Awards for Volunteer Excellence (HAVE), in which all nominations are only open to organizations that are members of the American Hospital Association.
There are 4 categories, and the one that is of interest in this article is the: in-service hospital volunteer programs.
As a recognition for their work, the Reiki for Staff Volunteer Program at the Valley Hospital, at New Jersey, was one of the 3 Finalists of this category.
CONCLUSION
These Trusts and Associations are showing us the way and leading the path.
With honest and hard work –Goo Hage Me, or the fourth principle of Reiki-, they are showing us that Reiki is not only compatible into a clinical setting, but is also valuable enough to be rewarded for its contribution.
