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Students and patients come together

By UCOL on Thursday, 12 April 2018

A photograph of a UCOL | Te Pūkenga Certificate in Beauty Services student performing a manicure

For many patients having cancer treatment means that they need to be away from home, family and their communities. In some cases this can be for quite long periods of time, weeks or even months. Ozanam House offers cancer patients a home away from home.

Ozanam House is more than just accommodation though, talking to the carers, patients and their families, Ozanam house is both a respite but also gets people out into the community while they are here. Today they visited the year two Diploma in Beauty Therapy students to enjoy some R&R and be pampered.

One couple spoken to are here for seven weeks and appreciated the opportunity of distraction. By being able to come away from the hospital and treatment and just enjoy some normality of connecting to someone and having a treatment.

Once students leave UCOL | Te Pūkenga they will undertake working with clients from all walks of life, experiences like todays visit from Ozanam House give students a chance to work with clients who may be experiencing situations outside of their control. Visits like this enable them to learn to treat clients with compassion, understanding and be able to give clients a service that makes a difference to their day.

When I asked Charlotte what motivated her to enrol in the diploma she said “I thought I wanted to learn massage, now that I am in my second year, my eyes have been opened and I love working with clients, and this makes me want to be able to offer a full service”

a student performing a manacure

Bex a certificate student who came in especially to help with the group had similar thoughts “I came to study make-up, even before coming, the thrill of making someone feel better or good about themselves motivated me, now that I am here I see it’s bigger than make-up and there are so many services we can deliver to clients to offer them an experience”

The patient here for seven weeks said “Ozanam house has offered my wife and me a place to stay, with others in our situation, giving us a place for respite and recovery, but also for laughter. These extra’s like the visit to UCOL | Te Pūkenga today, gives us space from the treatment and allows us to take things day by day”.

Ozanam House is looking forward to other patients being able to visit UCOL | Te Pūkenga in the future “We contacted UCOL to see if they could offer massages to cancer patients staying at Ozanam House while undergoing treatment at the hospital, UCOL | Te Pūkenga was so accommodating and in fact also offered manicures and pedicures. Our patients were very appreciative and loved the experience. Thank you very much UCOL.”
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