• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

A Pounds 70,000 Gallstone As Hospital Invests in Giant Pebble, Patients Ask: How Can It Possibly Improve Health Care?

Posted on: Thursday, 25 August 2005, 21:00 CDT

WITH Pounds 70,000, it could have hired an extra consultant or four nurses to give lifesaving treatment for a year.

But the flagship University College Hospital has chosen to spend that amount on a giant pebble.

The polished piece of Brazilian granite takes pride of place at the entrance of a newly completed Pounds 422million building in Euston, Central London.

It was discovered recently on a beach where, millions of years ago, precious and semiprecious stones fused under intense heat and pressure with granite, flint and quartz to give it an unusual pattern.

Titled Monolith and Shadow, it was commissioned as one of ten artworks to bring about an 'artistically enhanced hospital environment and create a welcome feeling'.

The artist responsible, John Aiken, said: 'Symbolically the monument could represent the history and development of the hospital trust and its diverse parts fused into a cohesive whole.' But critics say the NHS can ill afford such luxuries at a time when it is struggling to meet cash shortages and fund muchneeded drugs. Shortfalls of Pounds 100million are expected this year in London alone.

Joyce Robins, of Patient Concern, said: 'It is extraordinary. I do not see how a granite stone outside the building will be good for patient care.

'I would not have thought a pebble would be the way to go about it. There are other ways to enhance the environment in hospitals with music or pictures.' The sculpture was paid for with Pounds 35,000 from the independent charity the King's Fund plus donations and a fundraising campaign by staff after their application for lottery funding was turned down.

The King's Fund hands out cash to more than 30 NHS trusts to make patients' lives more comfortable.

Privately sources admitted they had no idea the money would be spent on a rock, adding: 'There are a lot more projects where you can actually see the benefit for patients.' Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust used a similar donation to turn a general recreation room at St Ann's Hospital in Tottenham into a family visiting room to give parents some privacy.

Central and North West London Mental Health NHS Trust created a garden at Park Royal Centre for patients and Hillingdon Hospital's casualty department had new seating and mosaic murals to brighten the area.

Daniel Reynolds, of the King's Fund, said: 'The vast majority of donations have been used to refurbish hospital departments.

'The money was not specifically for artwork and only a minority of trusts used it for that.' He added that the donation could not be used to pay for equipmentor medical staff according to the rules of the charity.

A spokesman for University College London Hospitals NHS Trust said: 'All the projects are designed to create a welcome feeling, a sense of reassurance and even humour, eliminating the conventional menacing austerity of a hospital.'

Peter Burroughs, director of capital investment, said: 'All the money used to buy work for the hospital came from charitable donations. This money was specifically donated for art in the new hospital and could not have been used for patient care.'

Source: Daily Mail; London (UK)

More News in this Category