Artists, patients and professionals gathered for a concert that brought color to the IPO.

The concert, in which artists, patients, family members and professionals share moments captured in memories and watercolors painted by volunteers, breaks the two-week work schedule of the IPO Medical Oncology Service in Lisbon.

Since 2019, music has found its way into the ward through the Music in Medicine project, which aims to bring the arts to hospitalized patients, as well as those who care for them.

Throughout this period, interrupted only by the pandemic, the response has been “very good.”

“The concerts are very intimate, which is very good, because then we chat for a while and people share with us what they felt, what they experienced, and this is very useful, we feel that the goal has been achieved,” cellist Lusa said . agency Sandra Martins, who has been involved in the project from the very beginning.

On the day of the concert, always a Tuesday, the hustle and bustle of the Portuguese Institute of Oncology (IPO) Francisco Gentil takes over to welcome artists, Urban Sketchers volunteer designers and family members who want to watch the show in the infirmary’s living room, transformed into a small hall, filling up at every concert.

The invitation to the artists comes from Sandra Martins, who tries to put together a “diversified program” but always with the aim of providing “another moment outside the hospital routine, which is a difficult routine not only for patients, but also for healthcare workers.”

“It’s also about being able to provide a moment of well-being and mutual connection between artists, patients and their families, and also about allowing healthcare workers to stop for two minutes (…) and relax a little,” the cellist said before proceeding to prepare the hall for another concert, this time with the participation of the Pandora’s Box trio.

A few minutes before the start of the concert, at noon, patients began to arrive, accompanied by volunteers from the Portuguese League Against Cancer (LPCC). Some are on their own feet, others are in wheelchairs, in chairs and two are in their own bed.

“There are patients who come in with their oxygen on and are being treated,” said Maria da Graça Almeida of LPCC, who, along with other volunteers, is interviewing patients who want to attend the concert.

Hospitalized 10 days ago, 64-year-old Maria Elena was one of the first to come to the “exhibition hall”. This is the third time he is attending the concert, having already been hospitalized several times.

To Lusa, he emphasized the importance of this project for those in the hospital: “We are a little abstracted from the others” and “at every concert we get to know the musicians,” who are different.

Dulce Diaz was admitted to Medical Oncology Services last year when she attended a concert. This week he returned to the ward, but only to listen to Pandora’s Box.

He praised the project and its importance to those in hospital: “It’s a way for people to get out of their rooms, interact with other patients, and it’s liberating because when we listen to the concert, we forget for a while about the reason that brought us here.” “

During the concert, volunteer artists from Urban Sketchers attract the concert and the audience, in this case patients who are interested in seeing the results.

“It’s amazing. Same hair color! I can take a photo and keep it as a souvenir,” Maria Helena turned to Teresa Ruivo, an Urban Sketchers volunteer, who offered her a watercolor drawing.

Teresa Ruivo manages many of the designers who volunteer for the project: “Putting design at the service of a common cause is something we all love, and of course we jumped on board.”

For the volunteer, the initiative is a way to bring “a little color, a little life and something to do”: “Sometimes the days here are hard and sad, but it’s always lively. And I think that makes an alliance with the volunteers. the healthy and normal side of people, not the sick side. It means treating people as more than just patients.”

The melodic sound of the Pandora’s Box trio, composed of Cindy Gonçalves (violin), Sandra Martins (cello) and Rui Filipe (piano), touched those present at the concert, which ran longer than the planned 30 minutes because the musicians gave in to requests to play “more” one song.”

At the end, the faces of those present showed emotion and satisfaction, which Maria Helena and Dulce Diaz described as liberating.

Psychiatrist João Graça, one of the promoters of the project, emphasized the “communication” experienced in this space, motivated by music that “breaks the isolation of illness and the isolation of hospitalization.”