Room 3-209 at St. Joseph’s Auxiliary Hospital has been transformed into a more private and welcoming space where patients and their families can go for some peace and quiet.
"As we started looking at really honouring our residents, one of the things that came up was, since half our residents live in semi-private rooms, when they are acutely ill or at end of life, they don’t have a lot of privacy in those rooms,” says Janet Eggert, Program Manager at St.Joseph’s Auxiliary Hospital.
Previously, the space was underused and wasn’t serving any purpose. The quiet rooms are now an important enhancement in providing quality and compassionate care for residents like 95-year-old Hubert Landry. He goes to the quiet room just about every day to relax and reflect.
“The huge picture of the railroads reminds me so much of my childhood. We used to take a walk along the tracks with my friends. We would make an afternoon of it and bring our hot dogs. We had a great afternoon just off these tracks,” says Hubert.
There’s one quiet room on each of the continuing care units at St.Joseph’s. Each room is the size of a private room and is equipped with lounge recliners and a hand hygiene sink.
"Our residents not at end of life can use that space as well, where they can go have a quiet visit, play some cards and just have that space for themselves,” says Janet.
The artwork displayed in each of the rooms came from various individuals from the community.
“We had a contest here calling for all staff, residents and families to submit digital images of their own photography of places important to them. We printed a draft of each one, posted them in the main cafeteria and put out a ballot box for three weeks. People were invited to vote for their favourites. The photos chosen were blown up and put on canvas and mounted,” says Janet.
Funding for improvements like new furniture was provided by the Covenant Foundation and other donor support.