So just at lunch time today I headed out to the car with two destinations on a slip of paper. As the car pulled away from the drive the shiver of déjà vu hit me. I was back doing house calls on a Sunday again.
This was a jolt, not since the change to the GP contract in 2004 had I had to do out of hours visits. Not that I was a shirker, but arranging childcare was difficult. However the killer to family life as a lone parent GP was the 6am phonecall needing a visit. Kiss goodbye to breakfast and school runs and getting to work on time.
Today’s calls were for fun, although both with a medical slant.
First stop was Maggie’s Dundee in the grounds of Ninewells Hospital. One of fifteen Maggie’s centres in the UK (a further seven are in development) and the only Frank Gehry building in the UK.
Maggie Keswick Jencks travelled to Edinburgh from Dumfries in the 1990’s for treatment of advanced breast cancer. The poor physical hospital environments she endured compelled her to develop a holistic approach to cancer care. Working alongside her medical specialists and supported by her oncology nurse Laura Lee and her husband Charles Jencks, Maggie survived a further eighteen months, finally dying in June 1995. She was determined that people should not “lose the joy of living in the fear of dying” .
Taking photographs of the exterior of this building was indeed a sensory pleasure. At the back wafts of the sweet scent of rose swirled around as I found my angles. Wandering up the hill from the front door the spicy scent of pine piqued my olfactory nerves. Then the glorious visuals. The building itself is a magic trick. It makes a large solid box look like a cosy, crumpled, pillow-cottage. Inside it’s warm, light and airy. It has multiple social areas of varying sizes and shapes with facilities to nourish the body, mind and soul. I overwhelmingingly felt that I was being looked after in that special space.
My second visit was to what was the old Liff Psychiatric Hospital. Now the gothic buildings are converted into private residential housing. In Greystanes House, in what was once the dining hall for inpatients, are two wonderful, huge Alberto Morrocco paintings. Due to the interior redesign the paintings are now at either end of a corridor instead of being on opposite sides of a large hall. This arrangement leaves them poorly lit and impossible to see fully. Apparently the residents are not keen to invest in the cost to light them properly. However thinking positively at least they are in the dry, on walls and being seen daily. The two artworks ‘Work’ and ‘Play’ are full of colour, figures and life. In ‘Play’ Picasso can be seen sketching on the beach with his wife. These vibrant panels felt like hidden gems that should be released from their constrictive quarters.
Visits over and time to get home. Not like GP visits after all, no tears, no blood, no ambulances.
I am indeed starting a new chapter of my story.
allison meighan 