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Minecraft 'helping kids through cancer treatment'

Kate BerryBBC Radio 5 Live
News imageBBC Rama, a 10-year-old girl with long dark curly hair, is wearing a red top and sitting in front of a computer screen showing the video game Minecraft.BBC
Rama has been seeing the brand new Minecraft recreation of The Christie cancer hospital

A 10-year-old girl is being guided through her cancer treatment with the help of a virtual recreation of her hospital environment in Minecraft.

Rama, who has Hodgkin Lymphoma, is receiving proton beam therapy at The Christie in Manchester.

Using the video game, the schoolgirl from Bradford in West Yorkshire has become one of the first children to "see inside" a representation of the specialist cancer hospital.

It is hoped the idea - believed to be a first for a working NHS hospital in the UK - will give young patients more of a sense of control and help them better prepare for their treatment.

News imageSenior health play therapist Charlotte Cooper sits in a yellow chair and is wearing a pink tunic. Rama, a 10-year-old girl, sits in a small blue chair on the right. She is wearing a red dress. Behind them is a computer screen showing Minecraft and a window, through which an outdoor play space is visible.
Young patient Rama (right) chats with senior health play therapist Charlotte Cooper

Senior health play specialist Charlotte Cooper told BBC Radio 5 live the Minecraft world was The Christie's latest tool designed to help young patients.

"We see children come who can be really, really terrified at the start, really shut down, just really overwhelmed," she explained. "But it's just such a delight to work with them.

"To give them some tools and strategies and coping skills, and to send them away feeling really confident about having their scans or having more treatment, feeling really more confident in their own ability to cope with things.

"Children learn and find their own way to cope through play," Charlotte added. "Minecraft is a world that they're really familiar with and comfortable with. To marry that up with a clinical experience here is absolutely perfect."

Talking her way through the virtual treatment space identical to the physical space in which she will be treated, Rama said: "Here's the bed where I sleep every single day!"

A recreation of a proton beam machine "rotates around" the 10-year-old to deliver precisely targeted radiotherapy.

"I think kids are gonna love it," Rama said, "because it's a game mixed with a hospital."

News imageIn front of a grey wall, a computer monitor shows a Minecraft recreation of the proton beam therapy room at The Christie. A keyboard and a TV remote are on a blue table below the monitor.
A Minecraft view of The Christie's proton beam therapy room

The Christie treats about 120 children each year with proton beam therapy, a specialist form of radiotherapy that targets tumours precisely, limiting damage to surrounding healthy tissue.

There are only two NHS trusts that offer high-energy proton beam treatment in the UK: The Christie and University College London Hospital.

Rama is halfway through her treatment, which she said was "actually not that bad, because if I tell you the truth, whenever I'm in the radiotherapy, I go to sleep so I don't feel anything."

When asked whether she thought a virtual hospital in a video game was a good idea, Rama replied: "Yes - because I don't want any kids to be scared about coming to a hospital where they need to do their radiotherapy.

"Before looking at the actual machine, you can see on Minecraft and you know how it looks... and you know what you have to do.

"So I do think this game is really going to help little kids with going around the hospital."

Rama's story and several others can be heard throughout Tuesday in BBC Radio 5 live's special 'You, Me and The Big C' legacy day