Even with your eyes closed, you could guess where you are. The smell gives it away. The smell of illness, distress and injury tells you that you’re at the Emergency Room. The ER at Beth Israel to be specific. Once you open your eyes, you see the washed-out colors of green, brown, grey, and beige, colors of depression and disease on floors, walls, chairs, sheets and curtains.
I understand one hundred percent understand and absolutely agree that the ER’s main focus should be on saving lives and making patients feel better for the moment and not on the interior design of the place. But don’t you think that the depressing colors are adding to the distress that the patients already are feeling? A splash of yellow or blue color could perhaps calm and make patients feel better. Maybe even let children come in to paint the walls with their drawings.