Project

Passages

Year

2016

Supported by
  • HSE Staff Health & Wellbeing Initiative through Heathy Ireland
  • Saolta University Health Care Group
  • Galway County Council
  • Galway City Council
  • Sligo County Council

I thoroughly enjoyed my classes and would love to continue as it brought an element of relaxation and fun to my life in what was a particularly stressful time.

Thank you for a lovely diversion to our normal working day – it has been a lovely way to step back from routine and take some ‘me’ time.

In 2016, as part of a HSE Staff Health and Wellbeing Initiative for Healthy Ireland, we introduced staff art workshops to 4 Saolta hospital sites to promote positive mental health and wellbeing. For staff who often felt overworked, under-resourced, and unappreciated, the workshops provided absorbing experiences and an important means to “switch off” from work stress in a supportive group dynamic with colleagues. Some described an increase in confidence that would encourage them to consider trying new things in future, and thanks at having ‘something for them’ after many years of service.

Healthy Ireland recognises that increased physical activity is key to improving the health of the population and that health and wellbeing are also affected by the physical environment in which people live and work. This so, we invited all Saolta staff to go for a walk and bring a little of what they found back in to transform their hospital walls. Inspired by the launch of Saolta’s Hospital Walks, Passages was a Saolta-wide art project celebrating journeys of the imagination and on foot, introducing art installations for and by staff at 5 hospital sites. Staff sent us the colours and gorgeous moments from their wandering minds and walking routes – fragments of their pedestrian and literary rambles. The bluebells and wild garlic of Merlin Woods were brought into the stairwells and corridors of Merlin Park University Hospital, the marks of workshop participants were incorporated in wallpapers at University Hospital Galway, a sea view featured in the refurbishment of a bereavement room for Mayo University Hospital’s Accident and Emergency Department, and staff photography was framed for permanent exhibition at Letterkenny University Hospital and Portiuncula University Hospital. Follow us on Instagram for more images of this project.

Featured images: Stairwell and lily pond corridor at MPUH with artwork by Noel Barbour, corridor at SUH, artwork installed at Accident and Emergency and rear entrance at PUH.