I’ve now had two abortive attempts to interview staff on the gynaecology ward. I’d booked in two dates this week, two half hour sessions when I could catch people during handover. But yesterday my visit clashed with the ward meeting. I sat in on that, and it was very interesting to find out more of the practical details of running the ward, but it took the whole half hour and then staff were back to work.
I discovered from the meeting, that the ward is very understaffed due to sickness and maternity leave. It’s got so serious that senior managers are being drafted in to work on the ward! So that’s one reason it is hard to catch people.
Today I turned up and the ward co-ordinator told me she couldn’t spare anyone because of staff training and a some complicated clinical issues. So I haven’t got any further. I’m going to try one more time, and have booked another half hour in 3 weeks time when the extra staff should be in place. Otherwise I might have to rethink.
It occurs to me that I might have to abort the idea of interviewing people off the ward, and do the ‘interviews’ while I shadow staff. It is proving impossible to get dedicated one to one time.
On a brighter note, the three of us Artists in Residence at Lime got together yesterday for the first time. We all shared a bit about ourselves and then talked about how we are approaching the residency.
James Bloomfield is an established painter, and has begun to explore conceptual art. He is planning to do a series of paintings for the hospital, and is also using the residency to work on a project about the Afghan war.
www.jamesbloomfield.co.uk
Nicola Colclough has been working in community arts for a number of years, and wants to use her residency to develop her skills in this area. She is starting by getting a feel for the hospital environment and will be shadowing staff in the therapeutic play unit.
They were really supportive about the problems I’ve been having with the Gynaecology project, and James reminded me that I mustn’t get caught up with other people’s expectations, but am allowed to work at my own pace. Thank you James!
While I’ve been mulling over the Gynaecology project, I’ve been getting on with other projects. I’ve got two things on the go at the moment. One is a artist’s book about Hulme which I’m hoping to get ready for the Manchester Artist’s Book Fair in October. The other is 108 garments, which is based on research I did during a residency in 2009. I was looking at the history of the Methodist Church in Manchester, and discovered in the archives, information about social projects they ran in the 1890s, including a women’s refuge and a rescue home for destitute girls. I found lists of the womens belongings, which were literally just the clothes they stood up in. 108 Garments is a response to that, but I’m not too sure where it is heading. I was at Platt Hall Costume Museum a few weeks ago, and these are a couple of drawings I particularly like.
With such a long gap between visits to the gynaecology ward, it is hard to get a sense of continuity. Other projects, holidays and illness have got in the way and I’m finding it difficult to focus. I have given myself a deadline of Christmas to get this project completed, but I still have little idea of what it might actually look like! My plan for this visit was to start interviewing staff and possibly patients, and begin to collect ideas and phrases to work with, but when I arrived at the ward, I discovered that the emergency treatment ward I visited last time was closed and all their patients have been moved to the other ward.
The new ward also deals with gynaecological problems but has had a completely different rhythm, catering for longer-stay patients in hospital for major surgery. They are mostly older women, with more complex conditions and a different care regime. It seems likely that the two wards will amalgemate in the near future so I suggested it would be better to do another session of shadowing to get to know this new environment.
This new situation puts me in somewhat of a dilemma. My main interest was in working with women experiencing miscarriage and terminations, but they are almost exclusively day patients, who spend very little time on the ward, and don’t have much time to interact with their surroundings. The people who spend time there, and who would appreciate some art to look at, who are encouraged to walk around as part of their recovery, are the women having major surgical procedures. But those are not the patients I came to the project wanting to work with. And I’m not sure that my initial ideas will work for these patients.
