HUNDREDS of millions of dollars has been spent on Fiona Stanley Hospital, but none of it was allocated to decorate the children’s ward.
That’s despite a raft of studies showing a cheery environment can help children’s recovery.
The ward’s stark white walls prompted nurses to fundraise and stick up a few pictures.
When a nurse wandered into Wendy Binks’ Fremantle gallery to buy a print or two — from out of her own pocket — the author and illustrator of Stripey the Emu was so shocked she offered to donate an entire series of her work to brighten up the ward.
“The nurse was going to laminate them…saying there was no money for art,” Binks told the Herald, gobsmacked by the meanness of the department.
After speaking further with nurses, Binks specially designed a series of her famous emu, in a hospital bed wearing an oxygen mask, having his blood pressure taken and in a wheelchair.
Parents in neonatal will be amused with her trio of mum and dad emus anxiously watching their little one hatch.
Fiona Stanley acting executive director Paul Mark says the hospital doesn’t fund artwork nor will it use official resources to install donated works. He acknowledges staff have been doing it all themselves, through fundraising.
But he says some of the children’s ward and children’s emergency department were decorated with artwork that was part of a competition.
• Wendy Binks has donated art to decorate the children’s ward at Fiona Stanley Hospital. Photo by Matthew Dwyer.
“The designs…so generously donated by Wendy Binks will be a wonderful addition to the wallpaper art already in the paediatric ward and will help continue to promote a positive healing environment for our children,” Dr Mark told the Herald.
The stark environment of Fiona Stanley is at odds with hospitals worldwide.
At the children’s hospital of Pittsburgh, children are treated to mural-covered walls and floors, interactive video projections, coconut aromatherapy in “Parrot Island” (the CT scanning room), music and even disco ball lights.
In the year before tizzing up its CT scan, Pittsburgh was sedating kids 351 times just to get them through the process without them freaking out. Once the make-over was complete, that dropped to just 45 needles. A year later it was nine.
Meanwhile Binks is pulling the pin on her South Terrace shop, not because of high rents—she’s just too busy.
She’s spent weeks in the eastern states recently where a stage adaptation of her book went gangbusters, and is writing a new book, between author tours for the old ones. “This year I went to India, Singapore and the Kimberley–twice.”
The effervescent Binks is also negotiating with chinaware supremo Maxwell Williams, which wants to put her quirky emus on its cups worldwide.
Binks’ Stunned Emu Gallery will close in the new year, but her Fremantle Markets stall will continue to operate.
by JENNY D’ANGER
