Aimée Jong and Erik Valkenier, parents of Charlie (4), took the initiative to produce fun, beautiful and safe tube patches with more than 40 different prints. They founded the company Tubiesmile and now supply the plasters to the Máxima Center, but also to other health organizations. Even adults like to order these plasters from the web shop. It's better than a plain white plaster. In addition to the plasters, there are also probe backpacks, bags and clips, all in cheerful prints.
A good idea
Francis Sandbrink, a pediatric oncology nurse, came up with the idea of making customized plasters years ago. She explains: ‘I was nursing a little boy who had his own ideas for his plaster: a Paw Patrol and Nerf guns just seemed like fun. But unfortunately, I can't draw.... So I came up with the idea of printing plasters. Using a picture from the internet, I started printing white plasters. Super fun for the kids! But there were problems with the ink and the printer, and with safety. As a result, the project diluted, while the children's demand didn't stop. Francis: ‘Kids who have had a probe for months want something fun and eye-catching, like other patches. Other kids find it interesting and ask for it. So a tube comes out of the medical environment, it becomes more of a 'normal' patch.’
Parents
Although they didn't know it, Aimée, the mother of Charlie, who was treated at the Máxima Center as a toddler, toyed with the idea of making her own probe patches. Together with her husband Erik, a graphic designer by profession, she developed prints of hearts, dog paws, tiger prints, bears, popsicles, flowers and dinosaurs. The tube patches can be ordered by anyone through the webshop. Aimée: ‘The orders already contain the most beautiful stories of happy children and parents. It gives children a choice in a process where they often have so much to do. A teenager also wrote us a note saying that the conversation about her tube is now often about the cute print on her tube patch and she can have the conversation about it very easily.’ 