Sensing Spaces of Healthcare

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69 cards found

Memory #69

2020s

I remember … having surgery under local anaesthetic and hearing the beeps of the heartrate monitor – it stressed me out as it was going too quickly & I was trying to slow it down by breathing slowly. Mentioned it to surgeon who said ‘ooh I didn’t notice it!’

Memory #68

1987/88

I remember… being in … hospital to have my tonsils out – I can’t remember how long I stayed on the ward but I do remember the taste of the ice cream that I got to have every day!

Memory #67

Several years ago, I was in hospital for a mastectomy after a diagnosis of breast cancer. I’d been wheeled into the pre-op area, and the nurses and anaesthetist were chatting around me. One of them said brightly, ‘I’m going on holiday tomorrow so there’s a lemon drizzle cake in the staff room.’ I can remember mumbling – drowsily – ‘Ah, I love lemon drizzle…’ When I was returned to the ward, post-op, there on the bedside table was a huge slice of cake. To this day, I cannot think of, or taste, lemon drizzle cake without welling up. Such kindness!

Memory #66

I remember… Working at … an old imposing asylum – red brick and draconian. Today it still services the psychiatric profession, with an acute ward, two rehabilitation wards, and a psychiatric intensive care unit. But all this means is the industrious have installed new shiny lockable spaces into the decaying cadaver of liathon. The old hospital has its own memories and on a night shift it may share them with you .. The building itself … is an institution. Inside is labyrinth of corridors, stairs to old wards… The past is thick on the walls, white, green, and lines on the floor to help guide to the parts of the hospital you are SAFE to go to. The ceilings are high and white, very clean, and yet somehow a feeling not clean sticks on you when you wank through … Huge old radiators still creak into life powered by a huge boiler in the basement. The place appeared to have two temperatures: chilled to the bone and fever heat … Despite all the effort the place had no “human touch” … Hard, cold & hot, large and exhausting, a place where “touch” was not invited as it either meant you were being assaulted or restrained, never cuddled. One of the more subtle cruelties of the hospital was how it used perspective to really make you feel imprisoned. Apart from the obvious locked wards and imposing buildings, it gave the occupant (staff or resident) a beautiful grounds to look at. Ancient trees, field gardens, flowers, so on. Back in the day this was used for real occupational therapy, where residents would farm and maintain the grounds. The food they grew went on the table, the flowers would decorate the ward. But today’s modern and enlightened mental health … instead, residents would look upon these grounds behind secure windows and only leave once Section 17 was arranged … Due to the cold hard surfaces, there was no such thing as quiet or peaceful, only loud, alert, alarm, scream and scratch, click clack down the corridor, laugh with your mate …One day she will be knocked to flats … That makes me smile, the thought of click clackers of old matron walking through an entire floor of flats.

Memory #65

From 2022

I remember… My husband was in hospital for 6 months, the food was good – he liked it very much, particularly their lasagne. The staff were wonderful. As a visitor I also remember the smell of the food – delicious! I would walk up the corridor and know they’d had their lunch.

Memory #64

From 1962/63

I remember… Training in Radiography in what had been the mortuary of the hospital. Its vast ceiling meant that the office was on a type of gallery in the middle. It was quite daunting.

Memory #63

From 2012

I remember… I was in hospital and couldn’t get a dietician – I had 4 days of baked potatoes and cheese!

Memory #62

From 1967

I remember… When I was a child I had my appendix out. You were wheeled outside in the rain to your operation!

Memory #61

I remember… The view from the window of my wife’s room, following the birth of our second child.

Memory #50

I remember… The smell of coffee on the breath of my exhausted family members who took it in turns to visit me or stay with me overnight.

Memory #53

From 1957/58

I remember… I was 2 … the cot next door threw their nappy into my cot. It didn’t smell though!

Memory #49

From 1960s & 1990s

I remember… I was a nurse in London in the 1960s … My immediate memory is of calm, the peace & quiet at 3am on night duty. Contrast with how noisy a different hospital was in 1996 when I took my mother in. Chaos! The shops & the people & the noise now in the main entrance. So busy – like a shopping centre. I needed calm and efficiency.