Transcriber: Luca Rhammon Rocha Reviewer: Vy Dinh
A dream trip to the most beautiful place on Earth.
South Africa.
I was 19 years old. I was super excited.
I wanted to see the elephants,
the waterfalls and the beautiful landscape.
I was ready.
But three days beforehand, I didn’t feel so well,
I felt weak and slow and sick.
So I thought: “I will go to the doctor and in a worst case,
get some antibiotics.”
So I went to the doctor, I did a blood test and
she said: “In three days, you will have your results.”
I said: “Well, in three days, I’ll be on a safari on South Africa,
so, I’m so sorry.”
She said: “No. In three days, you will have your results.”
They called me three hours later. I had leukemia,
I could pack my bag and go immediately straight to hospital.
And I stayed there for around two years. Three weeks in. Two weeks out.
Three weeks in. Two weeks out.
But I'm cured from leukemia,
and this is because of two elements that are very present in a hospital.
Love and incredible treatments.
So let’s start with love.
I remember I played chess with a nurse in the middle of the night and
I had this favorite doctor,
he always came after his work and then we talked about dreams and relationships.
And I also remember the day that
they told me in my room that I still had bad cells in my blood.
The nurse said that he hid himself behind the I.V. bag, like the chemo bag.
So I couldn't see his tears.
Those people see people in pain every day,
but they come again the next day, and the next, and the next, and the next.
Or without them, I wouldn’t be here.
And without my mom, and my dad and my friends and family,
I wouldn’t be here. So love is very present in hospital.
And next to love, incredible treatments. That’s why I’m here.
I mean, the doctors, they have this immense skill and knowledge,
and I received a whole new immune system.
I mean, isn’t it crazy?
I’m 10 years old now. I designed my own birth card.
So those elements are present.
When I was discharged from hospital, when I was 21,
I thought, well, I thought a lot about life. I had a lot of time.
But, initially, I wanted to study philosophy,
but then, I said: “No,
I want to do something else”, because I concluded that
I know now that some people die and some don't.
And I can, yeah, better make the best out of my life.
So I did Design Academy in Eindhoven, where I just had fun.
I mean, I was young.
I worked with my hands and not much with my head.
But in my last year, my dad said: “Maybe you should use your personal experiences.”
And I did.
Because I saw, like, essential elements missing in hospitals
that I solely could solve as a designer.
So I entered the hospital world as a designer.
I want to humanize hospitals.
Why? Well,
I wanted to welcome you to my room that I’ve spent 64 weeks in.
Hospitals are a very interesting institution,
because their main focus is to heal patients.
But then again, they miss out essential elements to heal patients.
Very essential elements, and I want to share them with you.
We’re going to start with mobility.
An environment in which patients can be mobile.
Now patients are stuck in their rooms,
stuck in their beds, stuck on the IV pole.
They're not motivated to stand up, to walk, to go outside.
But inactivity shuts down the muscles and creates loss of physical condition,
while activity, movement, creates blood flow.
I mean, it improves wound healing.
It accelerates recovery.
I remember I was, like, sometimes attached to the IV pole for, like, weeks,
like five weeks without any detachment.
Can you imagine showering with the pole?
Dancing in my room, sleeping with the pole.
But it doesn’t motivate you to walk.
So why not use portable IV poles?
Studies show that encouraging mobilization can reduce an average length
of two days in a hospital.
As a patient, whenever I entered a room,
I immediately went like lying down in the bed,
because the main focus was on the bed.
So, rearranging a little bit of the interior
can already be very beneficial.
Because, where do people, or patients, have dinner at the moment?
In bed.
And talking about dinner,
second element. Healthy food.
Whoever has had dinner in a hospital,
and if you do, I’m so sorry.
Because most hospitals serve this, like, smelly food,
cooked to death, whatever it is.
But I mean, tons of studies showed that it contributes to the healing of the body.
We even have disease fighting foods. Come on.
But still, we don't use food as a tool to heal.
I got like Gevulde Koeken, which is a very nice Dutch cookie,
to gain weight in hospital.
And did you know that they compared prisoners’ food with food,
hospital food, and the prisoners’ food was better?
I mean: no offense for the prisoners, if you’re watching.
No offense, but somewhere, something went wrong.
I remember I got my food served on a plastic tray and a plastic bowl,
and my dad always put the plastic away.
We tried to create this atmospheric dinner.
It’s not only how it tastes, it’s how we have it.
Also how it looks.
And that’s food for designers.
And then we have the third element.
Contact with nature. A view on nature.
In 1984, Roger Ulrich already discovered that a view on plants, or trees,
healed patients faster than those who are facing a brick wall.
And they did even heal faster.
They experienced fewer complications and required less pain medication.
I mean, isn’t that amazing?
I remember that I asked for plants in my room, and then,
and then they said: “No, it’s not possible because they have bacteria on it.”
Ok, fair enough, for the patients and myself.
But even fake plants reduce, like, stress level,
it improves mental state.
And the sound of nature.
And the smell of nature.
So, let’s dream a little bit.
What about butterfly hospital gardens? Or waterfall sounds in waiting rooms?
Or midnight aquariums for patients that cannot sleep?
And then we have the fourth element, a comfortable environment.
In which environment do you feel the most comfortable?
Well, it probably does not look like this.
Well, what we had before.
The hospitals, they have a lot of white colours,
poorly decorated hallways,
and nothing really to distract you.
Cold materials.
And if you’re unlucky, which you probably are,
because you’re in a hospital,
you’re sharing it with other patients.
And it means that you hear their breathing machines, the beep-beep alarms,
the snoring, maybe, of your neighbor.
Privacy doesn’t exist in hospital.
And we maybe even hear them die.
I was 19 when I got sick, and,
I remember that I was a little bit sad that I had to go to the adult department,
because, somehow, in society we decided,
when you’re 19, you’re an adult and you don’t need fun colors anymore,
interaction or something to make you forget the pain.
I couldn’t even table tennis on the children’s department. That was sad.
But a little bit of comfort, we need that. Well, we don't need it.
It’s healing your patients.
So next to those two elements, love and incredible treatments,
we need those four elements to recover faster,
and to have a more humanized experience.
So dear hospital,
I’m convinced that you want to heal your patients,
but if you really want to increase the chance of healing your patients,
you cannot ignore those four elements. We need hospital gardens.
We need to be mobile, we need healthy food, fresh.
And so, dear you, whenever you don’t feel so well,
are you taking those four elements in account?
Did I expose my body to nature?
Did I give my body broccoli?
Did I hug a beloved one?
We only have one body,
and we want to dance, run, sing, laugh, travel.
For as long as possible with it.
And I know how vulnerable a body is,
so please, take care of it.