The LEGO MRI Scanner set from The LEGO Foundation!

We are honoured to have been sent this incredibly rare LEGO MRI Scanner set from The LEGO Foundation to celebrate the success of our fundraising campaign for the new iMRI Scanning Suite at Southampton Children’s Hospital.

This set is part of an initial programme of only 600 that have been sent to hospitals around the world to see if they can help alleviate some of the stress that children experience when having to have an MRI scan and this one will be going to Southampton Children’s Hospital.

We are very lucky that Sarah Parish and James Murray, founders of The Murray Parish Trust, got to have a little play with it first (after all you are never too old for LEGO) and it even made an appearance on ITV’s This Morning Show with Philip and Holly.

Sarah and Jim were invited to the sofa to discuss the success of The Murray Parish Trust’s fundraising campaigns and our upcoming  Hares of Hampshire Art Trail!

You can catch up on the appearance HERE.

 

“Anyone who’s ever had an MRI scan knows they’re not much fun. And for young children, they can be downright scary. How do you encourage a child to lie perfectly still in a noisy tunnel for long chunks of time? Hospitals often resort to anaesthesia. But what if they didn’t have to?

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A team at Odense University Hospital and volunteer LEGO employees have teamed up to make MRIs more playful and less stressful. To do it, they’ve designed a LEGO brick model of an MRI scanner. By playing with it before their scans (guided by hospital staff), children get a feel for the room they’ll be in and the machine they’ll face. And, by putting a LEGO minifigure through the model scanner first, children can take control and learn what to expect at the same time.” – The LEGO Foundation

“MRI Scanners are huge machines. They also make a lot of noise which can be very daunting for children. Our team have found that use of models such as the LEGO models has led to more positive, calm experiences for many children. This benefits the child, their family and also the quality of the MRI scan, which relies on the person being very still for up to an hour to work”
Ulla Jensen, Department of Radiology at Odense University Hospital

Thank you to The LEGO Foundation for sending us this wonderful gift which we are sure will make a great difference to children when undegoing a potentially frightening procedure in hospital