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Private rooms at St. Erik Eye Hospital’s new nursing ward

5 November 2020

No more cramped, outdated dorm rooms. In St. Erik Eye Hospital’s clean, newly constructed premises in Hagastaden, all hospitalised patients get their own room.

Två kvinnor i blå sjukhusuniform som sitter på en patientsäng och ler.

Maria Eriksson Rus, nurse manager, and Annso Holmgren, deputy nurse manager at St. Erik Eye Hospital, give a tour of the new nursing rooms.

At St. Erik Eye Hospital’s new nursing ward, there are a total of 16 single rooms, all equipped with television, private shower and toilet. Three of the rooms also have foldout beds for family members or assistants that stay overnight.

Maria Eriksson Rus, head nurse at St. Erik Eye Hospital nursing ward says that the long-term ambition is that all patient rooms will have extra beds. For example, child patients always have a parent overstaying with them. Just like at the old nursing ward, children and adults are treated side by side.

We also have a playroom, and we plan to refurbish one of the examination rooms into a treatment room. The idea is that no treatments that may be uncomfortable should be administered inside the patient room. The treatment room will be equipped with materials that can divert a child’s attention and facilitate examination and treatment, says Maria Eriksson Rus.

​Several of the patient rooms have a foldout bed for an accompanying parent, family member or assistant. Maria Eriksson Rus and Annso Holmgren show how easily the bed folds out. Photo: Jens Sølvberg

Since before, the nursing ward has nurses trained or experienced in paediatric care. Together, they have formed a paediatric team that will continue developing our care of child patients in the new premises, Maria Eriksson Rus adds.

In the move to new premises, they have taken the opportunity to separate the nursing ward from day surgery. Children and adults that go home on the same day as the surgery will now be treated in the day surgery ward, which is located at the new surgical floor.

The fact that we are now using the nursing ward solely for inpatient care, and that the day surgery patients are separated from our admitted overnight patients, will be beneficial for both patients and staff – not least in terms of hygiene, says Annso Holmgren, deputy nurse manager at the nursing ward, as well as moving coordinator.

​Annso Holmgren says that there has often been a great throughput of people in the old St. Erik nursing ward. This created crowded conditions for both patients and staff. Photo: Jens Sølvberg

As before, the hospital has a national commission to provide eye care, which means they receive patients from all over Sweden. Many of the patients and their families travel to the eye hospital by car. Annso Holmgren and Maria Eriksson Rus are happy to be rid of the overcrowded parking lot in Kungsholmen in central Stockholm.

In the new hospital, we have a garage with parking spaces for both patients and family members, says Annso Holmgren.

Annso Holmgren in the new parking garage for patients and visitors of St. Erik Eye Hospital. Photo: Jens Sølvberg

Both Maria Eriksson Rus and Annso Holmgren believe that the new vicinity to Karolinska Univeristy Hospital Solna is an advantage. In the long term, they hope to develop a knowledge exchange with the operations at Karolinska. The move in itself will be an improvement for the patients and the some 40 employees of the nursing ward.

Our new premises are so new and shiny, and the patient rooms feel almost like hotel rooms, says Annso Holmgren in closing.
 


 
Updated
29 January 2021