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Art infuses hospitals with life

The Young Reporter (2007, December), 40(04), pp. 9.
Author: Janet Shen Wenwen. Editor: Roney Chan Chi-wing.
Permanent URL - https://sys01.lib.hkbu.edu.hk/bujspa/purl.php?&did=bujspa0015808

By JANET SHEN WENWEN

When told to paint something about a dream, a 15-year-old girl suffering from anorexia - an eating disorder - had no idea what to draw.

Suddenly, she brushed the paper with pink, but soon covered it with sky blue. And after a drip of brown color dropped onto the wide blue, she stroked aimlessly on the paper where the brown color was located.

Finally, she got the idea to make the brown a sea gull and the wide blue a sky, and alter she painted another sea gull next to the first one, she realized that she wanted company.

“The painting process helped the girl to realize that she had long treated the illness as her only company, and it was the cause of the illness,” said Eve Wong Wai-lan, the Hospital Manager of the Adolescent Medical Centre at the Elizabeth Queen Hospital.

This is a case of art therapy, in which art is used as a way to treat illnesses. Since art therapy was introduced in the late 1990s, it has helped a lot of patients to recover from illnesses, especially psychological ones.

It is important for patients to have a positive mind. And they can have one from art as it helps them to communicate with others, express their feelings and get away form thinking how bad the situation is and how unhappy they are.

Philip Chiu Wai-yan, a professor of Chinese University of Hong Kong and also a surgeon of Prince of Wales Hospital, welcomes art in hospitals.

He said that yet most of the clinical rooms only have medical equipments and beds, so the hanging of artistic works can definitely bring some changes.

“It infuses hospitals with life,” said Mr Chiu.

But Mr Chiu indicated that the implementation of art in hospitals had to focus on what the patients really needed.

“They want to live normally, instead of being imprisoned. So it’s much better to have some regular performances such as concerts and dramas which are close to their daily lives,” he said.

According to Ms Wong, art therapy is only one branch of arts therapy which also consists of music, dance and drama. But the situation of arts therapy in Hong Kong is not optimistic.

“There’s no cooperation and coordination among them and they even compete with each other to gain institutionalized positions in hospitals as the hospitals have not yet employed any long term arts therapists,” said Ms Wong.

Besides, Mr Chiu also indicated that shortages of money and venues also hinder the arts therapy to achieve a desirable impact.

Edited by RONEY CHAN CHI-WING

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