Thursday 22 July 2010

Healing spaces




Imagine you are ill, it could be a headache, a cold or worse, you wake up and look around, where would you like to be, what would your ideal surroundings look like to make you feel better, to motivate you to get back on your feet? Large windows with flowing white curtains rippling in the breeze? Large open windows looking into a garden of beautiful trees and plants? Natural light pouring in the room? Organic shapes and wooden surfaces? Pots of plants in your room?

This is my dream for my patients. I am currently in my third year of my nursing degree and have just started my dissertation module. 9 months of hard work coming up! I have known for a while that I wanted to concentrate on alternative or complementary therapies, however funnily enough whilst reading some research papers on 'healing' I came across an article on the 'healing environment'. Isn't it so weird when something just clicks?

I have an art degree, I am more than a little obsessed with calming interiors, and as my moving rituals have proved (last post), I feel uneasy when things aren't right in my environment.

So what a perfect topic. If I get freaked out by new surrounding and I am not ill, what about my patients?

Currently the hospitals I work in are full of the latest technology and hundreds of wonderful nurses ready to do bend over backwards for their patients, yet the environment is so clinical and stale. There is so much proof that hospitals are the worst place to get better yet I suppose due to a lack of funds nothing is done about it.

I can't wait to get started

4 comments:

nyssa said...

The first photo shows exactly the type of environment that I crave. Absolutely beautiful!
My mom was very very ill recently and the only beds they had were in the oncology/transitional care unit.
It was extremely sad and depressing. Not only because of the knowing that the patients there were terminally ill but because it looked so horrible and smelled stale and stifling.
I remember thinking how awful that some of these people would be leaving this stage of life in a place like that.
I thought too bad the money wasn't there for an outside patio with flowers etc. ( I know, how realistic is that?) If there could have been larger windows, plants on the sills, favourite pillows and pictures how much different it might feel.
I volunteered a few years ago in that same unit and left because my heart couldn't take it. Very eye opening post xo

Fernanda R. Lima said...

This is such an incredible idea. Go ahead and make this dream possible!

And you can read my blog in english if you like ;-)

Go to the google translator on the right side of my page and voilá!

xoxo

Steph said...

I love your blog!!!!! Im a nurse too.

Islandia Lane said...

Love your thoughts here and that first picture is just so warm, it'd be hard not to feel at ease there.
btw - I love your blog!