While on my first Health Care Assistant shift, I spent time supporting the HCA I was shadowing to help the nursing team take blood from a patient. Previously, multiple failed attempts had been made putting in a canula because the patient’s veins were difficult to use. To help the team I was working with, I held the patient’s hand to keep them still so that the needle could be inserted by a nurse without causing any further harm to the patient. After some time, blood was successfully drawn with the help of an ultrasound machine and a few different angled approaches.

The time I spent with this patient made me reflect on how distressing hospital environments are for vulnerable patients and how important the healthcare team is for the patient to feel safe in such a confusing environment. I chose to explore this experience visually as it showed me all sides of medicine, but especially how important compassion, empathy and genuine care for patient wellbeing are during critical moments for the patient.

I used biro, coloured pencil and watercolour paint. By using blue and red watercolour, I aimed to symbolise a calm, helping and supportive environment with the use of blue paint for the medical equipment and my gloved hand. In my piece, this contrasts against the use of red paint to illustrate the patient’s pain, fear and distress from being surrounded by unknown people and the repeated attempts to take blood. Furthermore, I used the red watercolour paint to illustrate how the patient’s fear spread to me as I held their hand and saw what they were going through as their grip tightened around my hand. This medium brings to life both my and the patient’s experience on the ward – and how different the perspective is when you are looking through the patients’ eyes. Being trusted to comfort someone during a distressing time made me feel incredibly important to the patient and also that I was contributing on the ward.

Creating this piece of work allowed me to reflect on my HCA shift more and reminded me why the medical profession is so unique and amazing in its nature. We have the privilege to be there on what could be someone’s worst day and offer them the care and support they need to get through.