Done with Your Old Console? This Charity Will Deliver It to a Children's Ward

It’s safe to assume there were a fair few PlayStation 5s and Xbox Series Ss under Christmas trees this year. That means there are now just as many old consoles destined to gather dust under TVs around the country, as you tell yourself repeatedly that you’ll find the time to take it into CeX.

Luckily, there’s something else you can do with your discarded consoles – and it’ll actually make somebody happy. Get Well Gamers is a charity that links up with children’s wards in hospitals across the UK, passing on donated hardware to bring some joy to kids who need it in trying times.

The first thing you see when you visit the GWG website is an image of a young boy in a wheelchair, holding a Nintendo Switch in one hand and smiling at one of the charity’s volunteers. This lovely picture shows just one of the many kids who have been made happy by their work – but there’s more to the story that the picture doesn’t show. 

“That child had been struck mute by being in hospital,” says Richard Thurbon, chair of GWG. “He wasn’t talking to anyone, the doctors, his parents. He was literally silent. Then our head of events wandered in with a Switch, and within five minutes the child was babbling away to him, talking about the game. His mother just broke down in tears, because it had been weeks.” 

It’s about making the children happy, but by extension it’s about their health and mental wellbeing too. Play is an essential part of any child’s upbringing, so for those who spend an extended period of time in hospital, getting them that play time is hugely important. Most wards have a dedicated Hospital Play Specialist (HPS), but often their budget comes nowhere near covering a new games console, let alone the games and controllers needed to play them.

“It’s about making things normal when you’re in a hospital,” says Thurbon. “It’s not a nice place to be, and video games are an understandable and common meeting place for kids of all ages and backgrounds. It gives a bit of normality, and it’s also a distraction tool.

“We have a couple of case studies from various hospitals. Royal London uses the Switch to distract children during skin graft operations. They had one unfortunate chap who had second degree burns on his arms, and was very reluctant to go through the procedures. But with a Switch in his hand, his arms are then still, he’s engrossed in playing Mario Kart, and they get through the operation. That’s where most of the joy of our job comes from.”

The idea that video games are good for mental wellbeing has been championed for a long time by those in the industry, and a recent academic study looked into it further. Niklas Johannes, Matti Vuorre, and Andrew K. Przybylski, researchers at the University of Oxford, surveyed 3,274 people about their playing time and mental state.

“The general problem is a lot of public discourse around video games is quite negative,” says Johannes. “The people who complain about video games also demand their regulation. For that, ideally we have good science. You have policymakers who need evidence, but you have scientists who don’t have the budget or technical capacity to get at the behaviour in question.

“Video game companies objectively measure the data we’re interested in, and this paper was the first to access that kind of data. We also surveyed these people to tell us how they feel. We asked people, ‘How much have you played?’ and, ‘In the past two weeks, how often did you feel this emotion?’ – for example: happy, anxious, content, stuff like that.

“Contrary to what a lot of people fear, there’s a small positive relation between gameplay and wellbeing.”

This study was just the first step for the team. They hope deeper research can be done in future, accompanying gamers for a longer period and measuring how they act over time.

You can donate to GWG with cash, or you can even pack up your used console and send it off to them. They’re all taken to a central facility in Glasgow where they’re checked for safety, and to make sure they work. Then, a hospital can reach out and make requests.

“They can be a bit sheepish when they come forward,” Thurbon explains. “They think there’s going to be a cost, but it doesn’t cost them anything at all. We’ll sort them out a nice package, with consoles and games. Controllers are always popular. Unfortunately, theft is still an issue in ward settings. We get a lot of replacement controllers, cables and, in some cases, televisions. It’s incredible how this stuff goes missing.”

“We’ve had 31 PS4s donated in the last week,” says Thurbon, pointing to an increase in support since the release of the next generation consoles. “We’ve even already had a PlayStation 5 that’s been donated by a lovely chap in Norwich.” 

GWG tries to cater to children’s other interests, too. They once visited Glasgow Children’s Hospital with a group of wrestlers from Insane Championship Wrestling.

“They are household names in Scotland, and they wanted to come along,” says Thurbon. “They spent the day there and it blew people’s minds. There’s a big pile of games, consoles, and all these wrestlers, and the kids were beside themselves – it was like Christmas for them. 

“One of the wrestlers – her stage name is Viper – one of the children said, ‘I’d always wanted to meet her, and you’ve given me that opportunity.’ That’s made our day. Just to do little things like that makes it worth it.” 

Find out more about Get Well Gamers and make donations here.

@matt_porter44