Op art Paintings transform children's surgical unit
The Guardian|January 04, 2024
When I was last here, there was nothing much to cheer you up,"  says 10-year-old Joseph Hay, perusing the intricate mural that now dominates one wall of the operating theatres unit at the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow.
Libby Brooks
Op art Paintings transform children's surgical unit

Joseph, who has undergone numerous procedures here after being diagnosed with bone marrow failure, remembers most of all his apprehension about general anaesthetic. "You're just waiting for the moment. This wasn't a place you'd really want to be at all." 

But now, the largest paediatric theatre unit in Scotland "doesn't even feel like a hospital", as Joseph joins other former patients and their families to inspect the millionpound transformation they helped bring about in a collaboration between children and creatives, the first of its kind in the country.

Alyson Walker, a cardiac anaesthetist who spearheaded the redesign, says of the old look: "It felt like the environment was letting down the staff." Some of the changes required were immediately obvious, to correct egregious design failures.

For example, the blood fridge was previously used by staff in full view of waiting families. It has been replaced with a small toy museum.

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