Healthier by DesignA new charitable trust asks whether good architecture can help cancer patients.

As the parent of a cancer patient in remission, I'm glad to see the Maggie's Centres concept being made reality. It's true that cancer wards are a depressing place to be, cold (literally), impersonal and antiseptic (you hope, if you're on chemo). But to be honest, the family doesn't really see the environment. We're too preoccupied with our loved one, how he looks, what's better or worse, when the doctor visited last, which nurses know how to administer a blood test or put in a PICC line least painfully, when his hair's going to fall out/grow back in, will he make it through the night, things like that.

It's not clear from the accompanying text what condition the patients are in when they're staying at the Centres. Chances are they're not in the middle of chemo, that is, their immune systems aren't compromised at the time they're there. Otherwise, pretty design and materials just make it easier to catch some opportunistic disease from the families of other patients, or from one's own. For example: in the ward my son was in, the double doors to the unit formed an air lock to keep airborne disease out. Visitors had to wear surgical masks and gloves, and scrub their hands before entering his room. No one could use the bathroom in his room but him, from the time he began chemo until he was ready to leave. How could these rules be observed in the Centres? Sounds impossible, so I have to assume that there is limited use except in hospice-style arrangements. Otherwise, Maggie's Centres are just prettier versions of Ronald MacDonald House. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it'd be nice to see all that private fund raising going toward cancer research instead of pricy architecture.

--Isonomist--

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