The medical world is gradually realizing that the quality of the environment in hospitals may play a (47)______ role in the process of (48)______ from illness.
As part of a nationwide (49)______ in Britain to bring art out of the galleries and into public places, some of the country’’s most talented artists have been called in to transform older hospitals and to soften the hard edges of modern buildings. Of the 2,500 National Health Service hospitals in Britain, almost 100 now have significant collections of (50)______ art in corridors, waiting areas and treatment rooms.
These recent initiatives owe a great deal to one artist, Peter Senior, who set up his studio at a Manchester Hospital in northeastern England during the early 1970s. He felt the artist had lost his place in modern society, and that art should be enjoyed by a wider audience.
A (51)______ hospital waiting room might have as many as 5,000 visitors each week. What a better place to hold regular exhibitions of art! Senior held the first (52)______ of his own paintings in the outpatients waiting area of the Manchester Royal Hospital in 1975.
Believed to be Britain’’s first hospital artist, Senior was so much in demand that he was soon joined by a team of six young art school (53)______.
The effect is striking. Now in the corridors and waiting rooms the visitor experiences a full view of fresh colors, playful images and restful courtyards.
The (54)______ of the environment may reduce the need for expensive drugs when a patient is recovering from an illness. A study has shown that patients who had a (55)______ onto a garden needed half the number of strong painkillers (56)______ with patients who had no view at all or only a brick wall to look at.
Word Bank
A) contrary B) simply C) view
D) significant E) exhibition F) effort
G) adopt H) typical I) quality
J) culture K) contemporary L) normal
M) recovery N) graduates O) compared