Artists help make visits to Cork hospital's injury clinic a little less stressful

Young artists from The Hut, the youth and community centre in Gurranabraher, were drafted in by the Mercy University Hospital in Cork to help decorate the walls outside its local injury unit on the St Mary’s health campus in Gurranabraher. Picture: Brian Lougheed

It's just what the doctor ordered — a large and inspired dose of artistic talent to help make visits to a hospital's busy injury clinic a little less stressful.

This talented group of young artists from The Hut, the youth and community centre in Gurranabraher, were drafted in by the Mercy University Hospital (MUH) in Cork to help decorate the walls outside its local injury unit on the St Mary’s health campus in Gurranabraher.

And the fruits of the labour were officially unveiled on Tuesday, with Cork's landmark Shandon Steeple featuring prominently in the work which also showcases the work of the medical staff at the unit.

Their artwork is rich in symbolism and deals with biodiversity, by featuring bees, it raises autism awareness, through the inclusion of blue butterflies, it features a doctor and a smiling patient on crutches to reflect the core work of the local injury unit itself, and it includes a hill to reflect the location of the injury unit on one of the highest spots on Cork’s northside.

“Most of all it brings a smile to people's faces and will hopefully reduce the stress of an unexpected visit to the unit,” MUH’s Values and Culture Lead Siobhán Kenny said.

Walking wounded

The local injury unit is one of 11 such units around the country that are designed to ease pressure on the emergency departments of busy hospitals by treating the so-called walking wounded — people with minor injuries like sprains, fractures, breaks, minor burns and scalds — who are unlikely to require a visit to an emergency department or need admission to hospital.

The seeds for this new art project were sown in April 2021 when MUH marked Autism Awareness Day by launching a specially designed booklet entitled ‘My visit to the Mercy Local Injury Unit’ to help parents and guardians attending the unit.

Staff Nurse Gerardo Medina created the booklet in response to the needs of patients, both children and adults, who need help when using the unit.

As a follow-on to that, clinical nurse managers Nuala Coughlan and Sharon Crowley, together with Ms Kenny, worked on ways to get the local community involved in bringing some colour to the outside walls of the unit.

Local artist, Dave Dummigan, from the Men's Shed project, was contacted and together with a group of teenagers from The Hut, they prepared an artistic plan for the wall that would capture some of Cork’s best-known landmarks.

MUH’s local injury unit was set up under the reconfiguration of the health services in 2012.

It treats patients aged 10 years and older only, for minor and less serious injuries.

While the unit was staffed to cope with a forecasted 9,000 to 12,000 patients annually, figures provided by MUH show that in 2019, its pre-Covid patient presentations had reached nearly 19,000, more than double the expected lower capacity figure it was staffed to cope with.

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