Cardiff & Vale Health Charity will be celebrating 25 years of Barry Hospital on 25th October 2020. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the planned celebrations sadly had to be cancelled. The occasion will be marked with a look back at some of the recent developments at Barry Hospital.
During the past couple of years the Health Charity has had the pleasure of working with local community groups, artists and historians to bring together projects which will continue over the next 12 months. The projects have included an art project with Ysgol Bro Morgannwg, an art project with local community group Vale Plus, a history project and various photography projects.
With monies secured from Cardiff & Vale Health Charity and working closely with Capital, Estates and Facilities colleagues, the Health Charity has been able to dramatically improve the ‘first impressions’ of Barry Hospital by making significant changes to decoration, furniture, meeting rooms and art installations. These changes have enabled services such as Paediatric Phlebotomy to open in a bespoke area of the hospital with new equipment, furniture and a wall mural for the children to enjoy.
With the help of the Wales Probation Services’ Community Payback team the Health Charity has also been able to significantly improve the outdoor space at Barry Hospital. The team regularly maintain the grounds and entrance area, and more recently have installed a wildlife garden in one of the internal courtyard areas thanks to a new garden scheme from environmental charity Keep Wales Tidy. The Health Charity has also worked with local school Ysgol Bro Morgannwg on garden and art projects, and hope to continue this collaboration with local children in the future.
The Health Charity has installed a “free to use” filtered water station at the entrance of the hospital which available for everyone to use. This is water station is linked to the Refill Cymru scheme which highlights where free water is available throughout the Vale of Glamorgan – this project reinforces the Health Board and Health Charity’s commitment to significantly reducing plastic waste.
And finally, a very recent addition to Barry Hospital is the new Aroma Café which provides a warm welcome to Barry Hospital, and is an ideal venue to meet for coffee and a catch-up when restrictions are relaxed, it will be a great space for the local community to use.
The future for Barry Hospital is bright, and forms part of the UHB’s Shaping our Future Wellbeing strategy. It will continue to serve the local community for many years to come – hopefully looking forward to celebrating the next 25 years.
To highlight just some of these recent changes, the team have prepared a series of short videos, one being a virtual tour of the ground floor of Barry Hospital highlighting all the changes that have collectively been made over the past two years (not including clinical areas), along with a collection of congratulation messages, and well wishes for the future of Barry Hospital.