Phil Redmond: Lifting spirits

May 16 2008 by Phil Redmond, Liverpool Daily Post

Lifting spirits

WAITING. How much of our life is spent doing just that? A few weeks ago, I was writing in praise of the art programme at Fazakerley Hospital, not suspecting that this week I would find myself in another of the region’s hospitals with plenty of waiting time in which to examine their artwork.

Especially on the usual trips to and from the WVS coffee shop, reflecting once again that, even in times of trauma and ill health, culture can still play a role in lifting people’s spirits or even simply help pass the time away while they are waiting.

In fact, as part of the wider community side of 2008, one of the projects the Culture Company has been involved in is called Waiting.

This is, to quote the arts-speak, a creative health and well-being programme which brings arts and creativity into health care centres and hospital spaces. In English, that means it is there to make people think and brighten the place up.

The programme is jointly funded by the Culture Company and Liverpool Primary Care Trust and delivered by a range of artistic and cultural organisations including the Comedy Trust, Chaturangan and FACT.

As such, it’s one of those projects that people will see or hear about between now and the end of the year, and which may also provoke a bit of discussion about why the health services should be spending money on culture, rather than, say, more on cancer research.

The same observation was made by a correspondent to this newspaper about the reported £90,000 spent on the statue to commemorate Bishops Worlock and Sheppard. Unfortunately, it misses the real point, which is about general well-being.

I am sure the health authorities will be quite capable of justifying their own contributions to culture, but from a lay perspective, £90,000, while not an insignificant amount, is actually a small sum in terms of medical research. At the same time, much of the cost of the Bishops’ statue came through small sums donated by hundreds of people who felt they wanted to do something personally, and in so doing increased their own and other people’s sense of well-being by being part of this cultural event.

I am now at an age when I get to spend quite a bit of time waiting to see other people in hospital, and I am also at an age when I can remember how sombre, dismal and, to be blunt, depressing, many hospitals were.

Anything that does something to brighten up the environment for patients should be supported. Especially if it also helps those who are there to offer support, with nothing more to stare at than hospital lino or count the smokers on drips in the main entrance.

Culture can play an important role in helping get through all of life’s periods of waiting.