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Healing powers of art

Emma ClaytonMelville Gazette

Students entered their artwork into a competition last year, with the winners decided by local primary school students, and then printed on to wallpaper and installed in the children's ward and emergency department.

Student Shannon Harbron, from Applecross Senior High School, was thrilled to see her depiction of two camels repeated down a 35m corridor along which seriously ill children are taken each day.

"Now we feel like professional artists," she said

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Executive director Robyn Lawrence accompanied the students on their visit and said the competition was a unique opportunity to use the blank canvas of the new hospital to display artwork that resonated with younger people.

"It stands to reason that the best group of people to know what our younger patients would like to see is younger people themselves, she said.

"Studies into distraction therapy show that colourful artwork can help patients to minimise their perceived pain and waiting time.

"It also makes the children's ward and emergency department an overall more pleasant and less scary place for our younger patients."

Fiona Stanley Hospital's children's ward has seen more than 700 patients since it opened in February and the separate children's emergency department sees an average of 70 presentations per day.