Terisa Tamang, Founder, President and Counselor of Dhairya Cancer Foundation, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“During an art session with children undergoing cancer treatment, this moment was captured and it stayed with me.
In Nepal, mental health support within healthcare settings remains critically underresourced. In pediatric oncology especially, psychological care is rarely structured into treatment. Medical urgency takes precedence, and the emotional experience of the child is often left unaddressed.
Yet in this moment, a sheet of paper and a few colors gave a child something that medication and monitoring cannot always provide expression, agency, and the freedom to simply be a child.
Art here is not an activity. It is a channel for emotions that have no other outlet in a clinical environment: fear, confusion, frustration, and yes, even joy. It requires no words, no diagnosis, and no translation.
Children in treatment are so often seen through the lens of their illness. Psychosocial support interrupts that, it returns dignity, creativity, and emotional presence to a child whose daily reality is defined by things outside their control.
This is not supplementary care. This is part of how healing is experienced.
As someone working in mental health and support services, moments like this reinforce why psychosocial care must be integrated into medical treatment – not added on when resources allow, but built in from the start.
Shared with informed consent from the parent.”
Other articles featuring Terisa Tamang on OncoDaily.