It's also colourful and cheerful despite the sad circumstances of the young patients who come for therapy and treatment after being diagnosed with cancer.

The oncology clinic is for the children ranging from newborns to 17-year-olds who don't have to stay at the hospital.

The clinic and other departments in the hospital rely heavily on donations.

Donations are also crucial to adding the special and personal touches that make the visits of the families and their children less of an ordeal.

The oncology unit is the largest children's cancer unit in NSW. Between 120 and 150 new children with cancer are referred to the unit each year.

The department head of oncology, Dr Luciano Dalla Pozza, said the clinic had been completely renovated over the past two years, thanks to donated funds.

"We rely totally on gifts and donations from the community,'' Dr Dalla Pozza said.

"The most common form of childhood cancer is leukaemia, but we see children with brain tumours, children with muscle cancers, bone cancers, kidney cancers, liver cancers things like that.''

Dr Dalla Pozza said treatment usually lasted between three months and two years, but that some children had to come back regularly.

"Some kids come back five days a week not for two years, but intermittently,'' he said.

"Having therapy for cancer is very disruptive to family life to the child's schooling and it's very important that we can support them through this.''

Support is often financial, pyschological and educational.

"We can only provide those services largely if people donate,'' Dr Dalla Pozza said.

The oncology clinic has many rooms, including the sensory or "distraction'' room. This is full of coloured lights, mirror balls and projections that help distract children who are undergoing uncomfortable procedures.

"Therapy can be five to 10 minutes or six to eight hours,'' Dr Dalla Pozza said.

"Some of the children require blood transfusions and some of the children just come in for tests.

"We have an isolation room - a quiet room - for families with small children.

"We have a wonderful, lovely treatment room, where children can watch TV and play games.''

Dr Dalla Pozza said this equipment and furniture were donated too.

Children who have to undergo painful treatment are put to sleep with anaesthetic.

The most important part of the redevelopment takes place in three rooms used for those children with infections who pose problems to the other patients.

"We have to isolate them,'' he said.

"These rooms have been specially built and filtered so that none of the germs can escape the room.

"It's been available to us only in the past 15 months again possible only because of outside funds.''