The Children's Hospital in Sheffield believes that art can make a big difference to health and recovery, so the environment in the hospital is made as pleasant as it can possibly be. This is the ceiling of one of the anaesthetising rooms.
Cat Powell is the Arts for Health co-ordinator at the Children's Hospital. She organises workshops with local artists and improves the environment through decoration and refurbishment.
Artists come into the hospital to do activities with the children. If the patients can't get out of bed, the artist will bring an activity to their bedside - things like felt-making, textiles, fancy dress and mosaics.
This lovely mermaid fabric picture was done in one of the art workshops.
The corridors are lined with artwork by children and professional artists. The pictures make what could be a clinical and depressing place, into somewhere much more colourful and cheerful.
Andy Heath from the Yorkshire Artspace in Sheffield did this mosaic for the entrance to the critical care unit, which consists of Intensive Care and the High Dependency Unit. Andy is also making mosaics for the bed areas on that ward.
Children in Intensive Care are not particularly aware of their surroundings so when the department was redecorated, these intricate weavings by a local artist - Seiko Kinoshita - were displayed for parents, visitors and staff to look at.
The High Dependency ward next door to Intensive Care is full of medical equipment, but there is still an effort to make it a bright environment. Some children in this ward can get out of bed, so these wall vinyls are dotted around the ward.
This cheeky man eating a melon is on the corridor leading to the canteen. The hospital displays the pictures and the children get to keep a copy too.
Each year £65,000 is raised by the Children's Hospital Charity to fund the post of the Arts for Health co-ordinator and improve the environment and amenities for patients, families, visitors and staff by making the hospital welcoming and child-friendly.
The Oncology Garden was put together by the Arts for Health department. The Children's Hospital Charity is creating a similar space outside the High Dependency Unit in which metal shapes will reflect light into the ward.
The ceilings of the anaesthetic rooms are intricately decorated to distract the children as they lie on the examination table for their anaesthetic.
The room for the CT scanner is highly decorated with space ships, planets and astronauts to give the children something to distract them as they go through the scanner. BBC Sheffield are raising £500,000 for a new CT scanner for the hospital.
A hall of mirrors makes waiting in the day care unit a lot more fun. The underwater theme is continued in the operating theatres where many children go from day care.
Down in the operating theatre area the theme is underwater. Fish, seaweed, bubbles and this friendly octopus are painted on the walls.
Clever lino technology means the flooring can be inlaid with shapes and colours, like these fish in the day care unit.
Lino and wall decorations give these corridors a road theme. The thinking is to make the hospital as bright, cheerful, welcoming and child-friendly as possible.
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