Archive – Page 5 – Sensing Spaces of Healthcare: NHS Sensory Memory Bank

Memory #33

From 1948

I remember… The old hospital represented what the NHS was *then* in 1948 – a real community hospital!

Memory #2

I remember… All my adult GAs 8 of them have had great fun chatting medical history with all the theatre staff …. I love history of anaesthesia so have a great time chatting.

Memory #1

From 2020

I remember… When my baby son was very ill in Spring 2020 I have a keen sensory memory of the mixed smell of bleach and baked potatoes that they brought me every evening (no other vegetarians on the ward!). To begin with this was a smell of worry and stress, but as he recovered it became a smell of hope. I remember finally bringing him home and bringing the smell back with him and feeling our lives restart properly.

Memory #3

From 2007

I remember… 11 days after the premature birth of my son in 2007 we were still both in-patients in the hospital’s transitional care unit. I was so tred, and scared, but desperate to be able to breastfeed. When they had time, midwives would try to coach me to get him to latch on, but nothing seemed to work, and I cried a lot each day. On the 11th day, around 11pm, an older, quite grumpy midwife was sitting with me when the baby finally latched on and started to suck. I looked up, and there were tears on the midwife’s face. It was a life changing moment, to feel my son finally getting what he needed from me, and also to understand how much the grumpy-seeming midwife cared about this working. I was so tired, but suddenly could feel some hope and joy coming in to my life again.

Memory #4

From 1967

I remember… In 1967, as a three year old, I was an inpatient at a hospital in London, where I had my tonsils and adenoids removed. On awaking from the operation, I was offered food. The first item proffered was the hardest Rock Cake I have ever experience (then or since). As you can imagine, my throat was not ready for such an assault. The experience remains vivid over 50 years later!

Memory #5

From 1985-88

I remember… The clunking sound of the patient index card carousel in the medical records department

Memory #6

From 1972

I remember… As a child, I had an operation at a NW Hospital (1972). I remember waking up on the ward and being incredibly thirsty and alone. I reached over to get a drink from my bedside and covered myself in undiluted Ribena. I lay there, still thirsty, sick and sticky. … I was unattended for long periods of time.

Memory #7

I remember… When I woke from the general anesthetic that I had when my second son was born I opened my eyes to see the silvery wallpaper in front of me swirling around in the most psychedelic fashion-most unnerving! Then I looked out the window to see a green hillside with small shrubs that were definitely moving up and down the hill! This went on for quite a while and I told my visitors that they couldn’t leave me till everything stopped moving around!

Memory #8

I remember… I spent a lot of time in hospital with severe asthma as a little kid. What I remember most is the brightness (colours) and chatter of the playroom, and the sense of excitement at all the toys (it was a VERY good playroom!). There was a particular little wooden village I loved to play with that was almost worth getting ill for. I don’t remember any of the tubes, etc. I would have been hooked up to, or any of the staff who would have had to help me get down the corridor. Just the toys and the colours!

Memory #9

From 1980

I remember… Being in hospital after having a small operation in 1980. Feeling quite low and hoping the operation would help me have a longed for baby. As all the lights went out one nurse had the squeakiest shoes I have ever heard. All night long…. The noise didn’t stop till she went off duty!!

Memory #10

From 2008/9

I remember… In around 2008/9, after surgery due to an ectopic pregnancy, I wasn’t allowed to drink and for what feels like days in my memory I had a kind of spongey stick doused in lemony-y liquid which was tantalising – not quenching as I couldn’t have much, but the taste is still something I associate with quenching thirst. In the same stay (I needed to stay a while after the surgery), I remember being on a shared ward and the sounds and smells of fellow patients waking in the night in pain or needing to use a commode – I don’t remember the exact smells, mainly the rustling of curtains in the night and then feeling a bit like I was intruding by being awake.

Memory #11

I remember… After the birth of my first child, not long after whilst still in the delivery room I was encouraged to have a shower. I remember the silent corridor & wobbly legs & the shower having someone else’s blood in it. I felt really out of it. It’s like a dreamscape.