NYC Health + Hospitals Unveils New Community Mural at NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health

Oct 25, 2023

New York, NY

NYC Health + Hospitals immediately unveiled a brand new mural as a part of the Community Mural Project, run by the well being system’s Arts in Medicine division. Today’s mural, Together We Heal at NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health, was developed by artist Kristy McCarthy by means of a collection of focus teams with neighborhood members, employees and sufferers and dropped at life at a paint social gathering the place the neighborhood was invited to color the mural collectively. Together We Heal is certainly one of 9 new murals which were created this yr, constructing on the 26 murals created within the first wave of the Community Mural Project. The first 26 murals are featured in a brand new guide, Healing Walls: New York City Health + Hospitals Community Mural Project 2019-2021. A video of the artist and members of the neighborhood talking in regards to the mural is obtainable here. This program is made doable by means of the beneficiant help of the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund.

Together We Heal is a two-part mural that pays homage to the colourful historical past and tradition of Coney Island. Located within the ready room of the grownup emergency division, the primary part of the mural, contains rabbits, which initially inhabited the realm and provides Coney Island its title. The mural pays tribute to the hospital’s origins as a modest beachfront first assist station; the hospital’s Hammett Pavilion, which is about for demolition this yr; and the newly constructed Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hospital. Throughout this narrative, depictions of unity and help emerge, the place youngsters make a sandcastle and therapeutic arms information an aged affected person in the direction of the hospital entrance. At the guts of the mural stands a compassionate physician, sheltering her affected person beneath an umbrella—an emblem of weathering storms collectively. 

The second part of the mural, positioned within the ready room of the pediatric emergency division, portrays a fascinating underwater realm. It nods to the close by New York Aquarium as a supply of tranquility for sufferers. A mermaid, an iconic determine in Coney Island folklore, gently comforts her youngster. Surrounding them, turtles, dolphins, and fish gracefully navigate the waters, creating an environment of unity, serenity, and therapeutic.

“Coney Island and its multicultural community are rich in lore and legend,” mentioned Laurie Tisch, founder and president of the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund. “Together We Heal celebrates the diversity of the community and the staff’s compassionate care for patients. It will bring joy and solace to all who enter the facility and we are proud to have supported its creation.”

“Artist Kristy McCarthy’s thoughtful inclusion of the beautiful imagery and history that make up our South Brooklyn community is evident in the final version,” mentioned NYC Health + Hospitals Assistant Vice President of Arts in Medicine Larissa Trinder. “Community murals play a significant role in public health by enhancing trust in our system, and further deepening a sense of belonging and pride for everyone who encounter them.”

“We are excited to unveil South Brooklyn Health’s murals, which provided a unique opportunity for our patients, staff, and community to work together to create images highlighting the joy and pride for a neighborhood that many call home,” mentioned NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health Chief Executive Officer Svetlana Lipyanskaya. “Art is a magical portal for healing and has been shown to improve patient outcomes. This project, with its nod to our past and a view to our future, will further solidify the connection between South Brooklyn Health and the communities we serve.”

“I have worked at South Brooklyn Health for over 30 years, and participation in the focus group that helped to create a piece of art will improve the experience of our employees and patients while here, was truly rewarding,” mentioned NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health Patient Experience Officer Laura Grossman. “I am delighted that the we will now finally be able to show the world the latest expression of how South Brooklyn Health cares for all who comes through our doors.”

“The unveiling of the Together We Heal mural is an important milestone in bringing together our community and the hospital,” mentioned NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health Community Advisory Chair Board Rosanne DeGennaro. “It provided hospital staff the opportunity to join with patients, and neighbors to relieve stress and enhance the physical environment of the facility.”

“Working with the staff and medical professionals of NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health was a heartwarming experience and I could clearly see the amount of love and care that they feel for their patients, their community, and for each other,” mentioned Muralist Kristy McCarthy. “With these murals, I hoped to convey that sense of unity and togetherness, while also celebrating South Brooklyn’s rich history and culture. Coming to the hospital can be a scary and upsetting experience for many, but my hope is that these artworks can bring some comfort, inspiration or even delight to patients and families visiting the ER.”

Kristy McCarthy (@dgaleart) is a muralist, educating artist, and neighborhood organizer who paints beneath the title “D.Gale.” Her artwork focuses on constructing neighborhood and elevating consciousness about social and environmental points. She is a founding member of the Harlem Art Collective and has labored internationally, together with in indigenous communities in Peru and Ecuador, the place she co-founded an annual public artwork competition.

The Community Mural Project is believed to be the nation’s largest public hospital mural program for the reason that Thirties, when the depression-era Works Progress Administration (WPA) commissioned murals in public buildings, together with nearly each hospital in New York City’s public healthcare system. The WPA murals have been the beginning of NYC Health + Hospitals artwork assortment, which now could be the town’s largest public artwork assortment and contains greater than 7,000 items of artwork of a number of disciplines. The artwork assortment is used to reinforce the healthcare setting, encourage creativity, promote wellness, enhance entry to the humanities, and have interaction employees.

The Community Mural Project creates alternatives for hospital employees to collaborate with one another and with neighbors, relieve stress, and improve the bodily setting of the services. Healthcare employee burnout is a nationwide well being disaster, and the persevering with COVID-19 pandemic has created psychological well being challenges throughout New York City, particularly in low-income, immigrant and traditionally excluded communities, that are vital affected person populations for NYC Health + Hospitals.

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About NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health
NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health, together with its 371-bed Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hospital and Health & Wellness Institute, is among the public well being system’s acute care well being care campuses that provides common and acute medical care to adults and kids. The Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hospital affords trendy trauma and emergency care, inpatient companies for major and acute care typically drugs, grownup drugs, pediatrics, common surgical procedure, medical and surgical sub-specialties, coronary care, intensive care, obstetrics and gynecology, midwifery, neonatology, vital care, rehabilitation drugs, psychiatry, and behavioral well being. Its Health & Wellness Institute with over 40 ambulatory care practices supplies affected person and caregiver centered major and specialty care to a major service space of roughly 875,000 NYC residents of South Brooklyn and the encircling communities. The hospital has designations as a Certified Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) Center, an Advanced Primary Stroke Center, an accredited Baby-Friendly Hospital, a U.S. News & World Report excessive performing hospital, a SAFE Center of Excellence beneath the Sexual Assault Reform Act, Designated AIDS Center (DACs), and Level 2 Perinatal Center.  

About NYC Health + Hospitals’ Arts in Medicine Department
The Arts in Medicine division at NYC Health + Hospitals seeks to foster the emotional well-being and promote therapeutic and wellness for all sufferers and their households, staff, and the higher neighborhood by using the humanities, together with literary, visible, and performing arts all through the well being care system. In addition to managing the system’s vital visible arts assortment, the Arts in Medicine division encourages evidenced primarily based practices and supplies technical help to the entire system’s well being care services and clinics. This is achieved by combining creative innovation and schooling right into a complete well being care continuum that helps the therapeutic advantages of the humanities. For extra data, go to https://www.nychealthandhospitals.org/artsinmedicine/.

About NYC Health + Hospitals
NYC Health + Hospitals is the most important public well being care system within the nation serving greater than 1,000,000 New Yorkers yearly in additional than 70 affected person care areas throughout the town’s 5 boroughs. A sturdy community of outpatient, neighborhood-based major and specialty care facilities anchors care coordination with the system’s trauma facilities, nursing houses, post-acute care facilities, dwelling care company, and MetroPlus well being plan—all supported by 11 important hospitals. Its numerous workforce of greater than 43,000 staff is uniquely targeted on empowering New Yorkers, with out exception, to dwell the healthiest life doable. For extra data, go to www.nychealthandhospitals.org and keep related on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

About the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund
The Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund is a New York City-based basis that strives to enhance entry and alternative for all New Yorkers and foster wholesome and vibrant communities. Founded in 2007 by philanthropist Laurie M. Tisch, the Illumination Fund performs an lively position in supporting revolutionary approaches throughout a spread of points—rising entry to wholesome meals, constructing wholesome communities, supporting financial alternative and making certain that arts and humanities schooling are accessible to all. In 2018, the Illumination Fund launched Arts in Health, a $10-million-dollar, multi-year initiative to help organizations engaged on well being points that affect New York communities and that emphasize the humanities as a software for therapeutic and constructing understanding. The areas of focus embody addressing psychological well being stigma, trauma, and aging-related ailments. For extra data, go to www.lmtif.org or observe @LMTischFund on Twitter.