Changing Ideas Award
My mother went into hospital as a functioning adult who used a wheelchair as an aid but was mobile and fully continent and stayed for 6 weeks. The staff wouldn’t take her to the toilet even when she begged and I pleaded. They didn’t have the staff. She was told to piss and poo in bed. She lost a stone and a half in weight and all hope.
As a healthy adult you lose 10% of your muscle mass in a week of bed rest, as an older adult this can double to 20%. In 10 days of bed rest older adults’ muscles can age by 10 years and this is accelerated in acutely ill adult’s It affects memory cognition, organ function, and mental welfare causing depression, and yet this is normalised practice for the treatment of the elderly making hospitalisation effectively into an accelerated death sentence .
30% or more patients who are discharged from hospital leave disabled known as “the trauma of hospitalisation syndrome “.
This was painted in anger and frustration at the “normalised “ treatment of the elderly. The pink nightdress symbolic of the engrained prejudice of a system where my mother had worn the trousers for the 90 years of her life .
The painting was painted to bring into the light the need for change to a system which allows a person to be treated as “ the other “ . The systematic abuse of and lack of care of not being allowed out of bed and being forced to piss and poo in bed and lie in your own excrement for hours when your not incontinent and the humiliation and the dehumanisation surrounding this. Under the guise of saving money and keeping people safe you undermine their human right to dignity and the hospital treatment goes against clearly defined research into healthcare which could be addressed and changed..
My mother died 4 weeks after coming out of hospital. - the artist