Blueprint For healing

A man is a child of his environment. Stated by Japanese violinist and teacher Shinichi Suzuki,this quote fits almost all situations aptly.

A man is a child of his environment. Stated by Japanese violinist and teacher Shinichi Suzuki,this quote fits almost all situations aptly. No wonder then,that more and more hospitals in Pune are making conscious efforts to make hospital environments patient-friendly and are going in for healing architecture. These days,hospital interiors have moved on from white walls and dark green curtains to designer rooms with ample light,bright-coloured curtains and walls adorning artistic paintings.

If I am a patient,I would prefer staying in a resort to recuperate,so why should I confine my patients to dull surroundings. A building and a room gives the patient a feeling of confinement,resentment and distress, says medical director (psychiatrist) Dr Nitin Dallaya,who is coming up with the Nityanand Rehabilitation Centre,which is around seven-eight km ahead of Hinjewadi. Estimated to cost around Rs 4-5 crore,the centre is under construction and will be built in an area of 30,000 sq ft. Dallaya has gone to the extent of learning various combinations of plaster colours,so that he can incorporate different color schemes for different rooms i.e. patient rooms,recreation hall,counselling room and meditation centre. While wooden flooring has been incorporated to give interiors a cosy feel,there is ample open space within the courtyard. Since we believe in music therapy also,in our rehabilitation branch at Katraj,we play bhajans in the mornings and other soothing melodies in the evenings,which creates a feel-good atmosphere for patients, adds Dallaya.

Architect Shailesh Salehittal,who is involved with the architecture of the Rao Hospital,which is coming up on the Pune-Satara Road,believes in giving the look of a holiday home to rooms in hospitals. He is planning to use world-class tiles,8X 6 windows and designer beds instead of small metal beds,bright colours like orange,green and yellow,decorative lamps and many other such combinations,which will indeed give the look of a five-star hotel room to the hospital. The project will cost around Rs 7-8 crore and will be spread over an area of 55,000 sq ft.

Our lobby itself is around 4000-5000 sq ft,which will have ample sunlight coming in,a big skylight on the top,lots of glass work and also landscaping. The rooms will have colourful curtains and beautiful paintings,even bedspreads will not be regular white ones, says Salehittal. The hospital administrator of Ruby Hall Clinic,Col Sharma feels that the ambience plays a great role in the process of recovery. The hospital,besides having a huge lobby,provides ample open space with natural surroundings. We take utmost pride in having a look which is far away from the conventional hospital. The atmosphere is very inviting,with a lot of natural light coming in. Patients rooms are painted in pastel colours,so that they dont look dull and dingy, says Sharma.

According to architect Sarita Zambare,the concept of healing architecture had been prevalent earlier too,but is picking up speed recently. She attributes the reason for this to the easy availability of materials,which was not the case till a few years back. When I did the architecture of Kelkar Hospital on Prabhat Road around a decade back,I was given strict instructions by Dr Anand Kelkar to design it in a way which will make it resemble a star hotel. It was done in a minimalistic manner and could have been better if it was done today,since there is a great variety of better materials available in the market to experiment with.

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