La cuidateca', a mobile library for the Paediatric ICU
The device aims to facilitate the work of healthcare and nursing staff, bringing health and well-being to patients.
The latest work of Paediatric ICU is a mobile library, The Canarian architect has been in charge of ‘la cuidateca’, the 'cuidateca', Artemi Hernández of the Office of Civic Innovation, in collaboration with the artist Octavio Barrera. The aim of this new “artifact”, which will will be integrated into the life of the ICU of the Hospital Universitario Nuestra Señora de La Candelaria in Tenerife, is to facilitate the work of the medical and nursing staff., The clinic provides health and wellness care for patients ranging from infants to 15 year olds.
This mobile library, apart from storing books, will include various playful and interactive elements for patients. Among them, there will be a table with drawings by the illustrator of the animated tale, Cynthia Hierro, The children's music will be played by the children in the ICU, which will represent the objects that frighten them most in the ICU and which will be used to make music.
Working together with the mediator Felipe G. Gil of ZEMOS98 and the five nurses of the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, started at the end of last year, an exciting journey that Artemi recounted: “From the beginning we saw that we fitted in perfectly, so we took on the project with great enthusiasm because it is related to community health, one of the main lines of our work. It's an opportunity to experiment and get closer to healthcare, through the team of comitentes, and a challenge to work from the limitation of being in an ICU”.
Thus, this library will be a a transformative element that will help nurses interact with young patients, It is the result of a process of negotiation and exchange that uncovers individual desires and needs in order to reach common agreements and solutions. A rich, open, horizontal and exciting journey that moved from a more abstract phase to a more concrete and grounded one., The result is an object that “may transform the ICU beyond our imagination”, in the artist's own words.
From its practice, Artemi designs and promotes methodologies and processes that generate more efficient and healthy relational contexts, The project aims to create the necessary conditions to facilitate urban management, social transformation and community development through design and mediation. A work that fits in with this concomitance that provides tools for health professionals, so that they can emotionally accompany patients and relatives during hospitalisation.
The ‘cuidateca’ was presented at the presentation event of the three works The project was launched last September in Tenerife, thus initiating a pilot process in the ICU of the Canarian hospital and with the idea of being able to export the idea to other national hospitals so that they can build their own.
