Hospitalario', the illustrated story by El Hematocrítico and Cynthia Hierro
The story has a first limited edition of 100 copies and was presented in Tenerife last September.
The second of the works of art for the Tenerife concomitance, Paediatric ICU, is the story ‘Hospitalario’, created by the Galician author, Miguel López, better known as The Hematocritic, and illustrated by the artist from the Canary Islands, Cynthia Hierro. The story, which has a first limited edition of 100 copies and which was presented at the public event which was held in Tenerife on 15 September, will be aimed at children admitted to an ICU, to help paediatric patients manage and navigate the admission experience.
The concomitance has a track record that began four years ago. of the hand of its mediator, Felipe G. Gil of ZEMOS98 and a group of five nurses from the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit of the Nuestra Señora de Candelaria University Hospital in Tenerife, -Quique Chinea, Lili Quintero, Ruymán Miranda, Seve Torres and Laura León-, to provide them with tools through the resources provided by art and culture to attend to the emotional care of small patients.
The creative work on this illustrated story, which began in mid-2021, has been built up through a exchange of the artist with mediator and commissionersOne of the things I have in common with the people who make up this project - the nursing staff of the Paediatric ICU, Felipe and the producer Andrés Cabrera - is our ability to listen and empathise, to put ourselves in someone else's shoes. So I start with that same idea of listening. I have to listen, I have to learn, I have to perceive, and I have to feel. In our meetings, which we have had by videoconference and especially the face-to-face one, I have soaked up and enjoyed it very much“.
A story focused on care
The result has been a story focusing on “care”, with a focus on children who are going through the ordeal of hospital admissionMy intention is that the children who pass through your hands will identify with the protagonists and share the same concerns,“ she said. She also pointed out that one of the key challenges is to be able to reach the widest possible audience: ”I intend to work in a format that is attractive to adults, but accessible to children. I intend to work in a format that is attractive to adults, but accessible to children, so that it can reach the largest possible number of readers“, something he has achieved through a hybrid proposal between comic and story.
At the event to present the three plays, some of the keys to the process were explained: “Despite being trained as teachers, and they as nurses, we found many more things in common than different, we spoke the same language because we worked with children, and we were concerned about listening to them. The process from there was very easy and fun”.
A work that now begins its own journey to find a publisher that can make editions that can make the result of this work available to the Paediatric ICUs of all the hospitals in the country.
