The red nose is enough to conjure a smile on every face: Together with the colourful clown costume it is the most important item of a hospital clown. When the hospital clowns PepperMint (Anne Asrath) and Matthilda (Regina Jordan) from the support association Paderborner Klinik- Clownarbeit e.V. visit St. Josef’s Hospital in Salzkotten, their work is not only about laughing and fooling around.

Laughter is the best medicine! Not only the legendary doctor and founder of the hospital clown movement Dr. Patch Adams realised this – It was already known in ancient times that humour brings a whole lot more than just a brief moment of carefreeness.

That is why the work of the hospital clowns goes much further and deeper than it may first appear. These freelance artists have all successfully completed specialist training as hospital clowns and show a high emotional intelligence and great understanding and empathy. It isn’t simply about making the patients laugh, but also recognising their needs based on anxiety, anger, despair and many other feelings which burden them and incorporating this in their clownery.

Set against this background, the support association Paderborner Klinik-Clownarbeit e.V. is committed to making patients’ time in hospital easier, to easing their anxiety about operations, examinations and medical appliances and to brightening them up when feeling down or lonely. With their carefree cheerfulness and improvisational skill, the clowns bring lightness and laughter to hospitals and homes for the elderly and dement.

Furthermore, the hospital clowns also help in taking the fear of hospitals from the healthy.

11 clowns are currently working for the support association. St. Josef’s Hospital in Salzkotten is regularly visited by the Paderborn hospital clowns. To help ensure that this remarkable work in our region can continue in this manner, the WÖHLER Christmas gift donation of € 1,000 was made to the hospital clowns.

For further information on the work of the hospital clowns visit their site: