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Dorset, a rural county with not much money to spend on whizzy arts promotions, is playing a significant role in the burgeoning arts in healthcare field, says Ros Fry.
This could be due to the higher-than-average proportion of retired people or maybe because many health professionals, like almost everyone in the county, are involved in non-professional arts activity (reading groups, amateur dramatics, painting) and are predisposed to think favourably about culture. In daycare facilities, drop-in centres and care homes for the elderly across Dorset, small-scale arts activities are taking place, led by writers, choreographers and artists to improve the health and recovery of the elderly, disabled and ill. Indeed, Dorset County Hospital, has a range of exhibitions of contemporary art that make it the largest public collection in the county.

Recently, I organised a TalkShop for writers and healthcare professionals with Dorset County Hospital’s Arts in Hospital Co-ordinator Alex Coulter. We listened to some extraordinary examples of how the process of working with a poet, storyteller or writer provided something that a doctor, nurse or physiotherapist couldn’t. Sometimes it was simply time or a listening ear, often a chance for a patient to express frustration or depression. Occasionally, it was something so wrapped up in the artistic process that it defied easy definitions.

Poet Pam Zinnemann-Hope talked about her ‘Words for Wards’ project, part of the Dorset Literature Network Development project which culminates in March with ‘Blah di Blah’, Dorset’s festival of words and voices. The project was based on reading poetry to patients in the hospital’s elderly care wards. While there were initial difficulties in bringing staff and patients on board, Pam discovered that the rhythms of poetry worked particularly effectively on patients. Nurses reported that some patients, who have never before spoken or moved in the ward, responded noticeably to her voice. Says Pam, “It was emotionally tough work – particularly when their families were listening. But it is a profoundly moving experience and confirms my belief that in the right hands, poetry can be a wonderful vehicle for healing. When a poem is read, there’s not a sick person or a well person, there’s just a reader and a listener.”

Persuading health and social service managers of the value of the arts is fundamental to the success of such initiatives. Proving their worth and measuring their effect is difficult but essential. Dorset’s cultural officers are making useful links with their opposite numbers in the primary health trusts and social services and learning to talk their talk. It’s painful but getting easier!

Ros Fry works freelance in the arts in the south west. t: 01308 423360;
e: ros@bridport.demon.co.uk;
w: http://www.arts-dch.org.uk