An inviting wait?

According to Susan E. Mazer, Ph.D., hospital waiting rooms should be clean, welcoming, calming, supportive, safe, caring, and sensitive to stress.

Under the “welcoming” category, Mazer talks about the waiting rooms and how they should be, “The opposite of sterile. Artwork that is comforting. Lighting that is warm. And staff that are in good moods and go out of their way to make sure patients and families are as comfortable as they can be.”

“The opposite of sterile.” Having visited many waiting rooms in different hospitals, I have experienced how uninviting and sterile they once were. There were chairs, white walls, and, well, that was it.

Now there are fish tanks, colorful artwork, plants, T.V.s, and magazines (prior to the pandemic, anyway). Mazer writes that the waiting room should act as the living room of the hospital.

No matter how inviting and comfortable, there are still things in a waiting room that cannot be spruced up or changed: fear and stress.

Waiting rooms are usually not places where one wants to be. The fact that Mazer can write an entire blog on what can be improved upon shows that improvement is much needed.

However, and like I said before, the fear, anxiety, exhaustion, and the unknown are not issues that can be made better by color, comfortable recliners, or soft lighting.

Time spent waiting for the doctor’s update on one’s family member or friend can drag on, and this in itself can make one care less about the surroundings in which they wait.

Sure, as a kid waiting for her brother to get well, a warmer-seeming, more kid-friendly waiting area would have made a difference from the uncomfortable chairs, bright lights, and psych ward feel.

But anyway you look at it, fear of losing a loved one is all that seems to occupy the mind, the ultimate waiting room.

Read how this gal responded to being that kid in the waiting room in The Waiting Room by Anonymous Gent, available on Amazon.