Art in hospitals...a waste of money?

sassyblue

barbiedoll wrote: »

As an employee of the NHS, I am used to seeing vast amounts of (public) money wasted on a daily basis. From the mammoth I.T projects that never seem to get finished, right down to the pointless blood tests that are performed on practically every patient for no discernible benefit, the money that is squandered really does boggle the mind.

Opinions??

The worrying thing about this post is not the art bit but the bit about money being squandered.

OP, is there anyone to take your concerns to and for them to take them seriously?

BTW l like art in hospitals, but believe it should be locally sourced and displayed for free with the option for people to buy it.

Errata

My local shopping centre has regular displays of art from local artists, much of it for sale. Most of it is trite tat. Displayed in my local hospital it would make me feel sicker, not better.

MissGivings_2

I'm an artist who was commissioned by Maggies for some paintings.

I was honoured they chose my stuff because it fitted in with their healing environment ethos and boy, are their centres beautiful, wonderful places!

Hospitals can be terribly depressing places and many people are afraid or similar.
Art and colours really help the spirit just like a cheerful, kind nurse or doctor helps a million more times than an unfriendly one.

Environment is a basic need for us all, but commissioned sculpture etc?

A lot of it is trite and an embarrassing and shameful waste of public money.
Ask who and what is it for?
Architects need to design better buildings too.

jjblondie

My sixth form art class project in Germany was to make large paintings of things in the local area to be displayed at the premises of local businesses. Putting unwanted art coursework and voluntary GCSE/A level/university students' pictures up in hospitals seems like a great idea to benefit students and hospital visitors.

lizziem_2

The sculpture in the first post is outside my local hospital and I also dislike it. I don't see the point of it really, and it's just too grey. The position they are standing in looks incredibly uncomfortable and makes me almost wince when I go by. If it had to be a sculpture of people I would rather they were hugging or something rather than standing on one leg and stretching awkwardly across so they can't even hold hands properly.

Inside the hospital they have another piece of art which I vastly prefer, called 'The Lift Game'. It functions as a collection box for the Friends. Basically you put some money in and press a button to guess which lift will arrive for the wooden 'patient' who is lying on a trolley outside the three lifts. When the lift arrives it opens and if you guessed correctly, a wooden staff member pootles out to help the patient - sometimes a nurse, sometimes a cook with a meal or a cleaner who dusts the patient's face! I think it is colourful and it has cheered me up many times when at the hospital and feeling down or worried, it distracts you as it is interactive and also raises money.

I agree that art in hospitals is a good thing, it does really help when you are worried and scared, to have something to look at.

Gazing_On_Sunsets

My MiL was in hospital for months with a brain tumour. She found the ward bleak, bare and depressing. So when she was better, as a thank-you and to make the nurses' working environment nicer (and something better for the patients too!) she bought and donated some artworks.

OP, are you sure the art - however bizarre (buttocks!!!) - came from a special pot of money for it?

j.e.j.

I think without the artworks the place would just look and feel too utilitarian, grey, gloomy and depressing!

barbiedoll

Thanks for all of your replies.....Lizzie, you know what I mean about the buttocks then!

I agree that decent art can do an incredible amount of good for hospital visitors, and staff too, come to that. We have some beautiful, original tileworks of fairytale scenes, that were rescued from one of our older buildings and they are just lovely, real pieces of art. Yet in the last hospital I worked in, the Trust spent quite a large amount of money on some pieces of coloured tissue-type paper stuck to the windows in the corridors, in the name of "colour therapy". The worst thing was, the corridor was rarely used by patients, just staff, most of whom were completely bemused by the project, likening it to the sort of stuff that is stuck onto the windows in infant school classes, as made by 5 year olds!

With regard to the unnecessary blood tests and the like, I'll give you an example. When we book pregnant women into our hospital for their ante-natal care, we take blood samples at the booking appointment. One of these is to ascertain their blood group. This is taken twice during their pregnancy, to make sure that the samples match. If they should need a transfusion during their delivery, it's obviously vital that we get this information matched to the correct patient, two samples means that there is less chance for error. But if a woman has already had one or more babies with us, why do we need to check her blood group twice more? It's not going to spontaneously change since the last time she gave birth. (I know that some women do have full transfusions and their blood group can change but this will have been documented anyway.) I've seen two women today, both of whom have had babies in the past 18 months, both of whom had their blood group listed on their computer records, and both of whom moaned about having more blood tests than they felt was necessary. It's expensive, pointless and a waste of money. Our management are always sending emails asking for suggestions for money-saving ideas, yet they won't even consider this. I just wonder why?

halibut2209

In case of gestational diabetes?

Tropez

barbiedoll wrote: »

With regard to the unnecessary blood tests and the like, I'll give you an example. When we book pregnant women into our hospital for their ante-natal care, we take blood samples at the booking appointment. One of these is to ascertain their blood group. This is taken twice during their pregnancy, to make sure that the samples match. If they should need a transfusion during their delivery, it's obviously vital that we get this information matched to the correct patient, two samples means that there is less chance for error. But if a woman has already had one or more babies with us, why do we need to check her blood group twice more? It's not going to spontaneously change since the last time she gave birth. (I know that some women do have full transfusions and their blood group can change but this will have been documented anyway.) I've seen two women today, both of whom have had babies in the past 18 months, both of whom had their blood group listed on their computer records, and both of whom moaned about having more blood tests than they felt was necessary. It's expensive, pointless and a waste of money. Our management are always sending emails asking for suggestions for money-saving ideas, yet they won't even consider this. I just wonder why?

It is more cost effective than being sued though because some muppet entered the information onto the computer incorrectly a couple of years ago and mistakes like this are made.

I injured my leg, it was logged as the result of an RTA - it was never an RTA, I've never been involved in an RTA and I had never told anyone I was involved in an RTA. It wasn't until five years after the fact I was made aware that some prat had entered into the computer that the cause of my injury was an RTA.

Clearly, I can't sue because of this nor am I about to but computer systems cannot account for the error of the individual feeding them data, so someone comes in, has their blood group checked and is listed as A, but the person entering the details isn't paying attention properly or makes an error for some other reason and enters it as something else, then three years after the fact the hospital uses this incorrect information and it has catastrophic consequences - the financial implication for the hospital from the resulting lawsuit is going to be hefty. For five years there was something on my hospital records that was untrue - imagine if this were actually serious and important information and if the hospital had acted upon it without it being corrected?

Of course, if you could remove all the people who make these errors, then you wouldn't need to check, check and check again but until such a time when that happens then it is best to keep checking just in case someone hasn't done their job properly.