Sensing Spaces of Healthcare

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.

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

I remember… being Overheated!

I remember… My wife was expecting our second child. We had to go to the hospital halfway through TV. We rushed into the maternity unit, we rushed to the delivery room and they said “put on a gown you’ll need it”. From leaving home, the first was 7 minutes later!

I remember… When I trained in the 1970s/80s we had protected lunch and coffee breaks – now people have to have quick breaks on wards. There is less time to decompress and talk to colleagues.

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.

I remember… Coming around after an operation and general anaesthetic. I had never experienced an operation before so this was a very unusual feeling. I remember the nurse getting tapping my shoulder and her saying “you are ok, it is safe to open your eyes”. I was still very groggy, but I knew I was safe & secure, even though I had not fully come out of the ‘FOG’ of anaesthetic.

I remember… Going to hospital as a 9 year old to visit my dad, in a hospital I ended up working in. Whenever I passed the window where he would wave to us from the ward, and would always think of him, which would make me sad as an adult as I was older than him then (he died of cancer). As part of his treatment he got transferred to a hospital (1971) in a different area … We went to visit him on the respiratory ward – the other hospital was a workhouse but this one was modern – it seemed very airy. The windows seemed bigger with lots of sunlight, the workhouse one seemed to me as a child to be dark. I didn’t like leaving him there. If you go to 5 hospitals in a 10 mile radius, they all have a different atmosphere and their own way of doing things.

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

I remember… When I was in hospital in the 1980s, people would come around with crafts to do. Making cards, I remember cutting things out. I don’t know if health & safety would allow it now!

I remember… I was studying in London, I was a student & was asked to be an interpreter for someone from the Middle East with leukaemia. The doctor, in the corridor as people walked past, said “can you tell this person they are going to die?” I did not tell him in the corridor, I took him to the medical attache to tell him, I didn’t have the courage!

I remember… My mum was a nurse (dual heritage – white & Nigerian) & worked in the NHS. She worked in Liverpool & often was a bridge between communities. For example, one patient (geriatric ward) called out ‘gari’ and the other nurses dismissed him because they thought he was calling out ‘Gary’ and he had no family. She pointed out he was asking for Nigerian food.