Arts and health

Arts can play an important role in improving your overall health and wellbeing. As well as performances and exhibitions, we offer a range of creative art therapies to support your recovery.

We encourage you, as a patient, visitor or caregiver, to take part in our arts initiatives in any way you can.

How we incorporate arts in our care

We use the arts to promote your health, healing and recovery, by:

• Designing our facilities to create welcoming and healing environments by incorporating the arts inside and outside the hospitals and creating areas for relaxation and contemplation.
• Displaying artworks throughout galleries within our hospitals. We showcase work of well known and local artists as well as artworks created by patients, visitors, caregivers, volunteers and members of the community including school students.
• Hosting performances within our hospitals, providing entertainment for you and your visitors as well as opportunities to be involved in our singing/songwriting workshops, community choirs and other performance groups.
• Promoting participation in arts activities such as our mobile art studio CARTWHEELS at your bedside and music and arts therapy delivered by allied health professionals.
• Developing partnerships with artists and arts organisations to bring new and established artists, creatives and arts and health initiatives into our hospitals.

We continue to investigate and research the benefits of our arts programs on the overall wellbeing of patients, visitors and caregivers. This helps increase the wider knowledge and understanding of the importance of arts for health.