Psych Patients Need Music

Tonight I fully realized what has been missing in my hospital work environment the past few years that has caused it to be far less enjoyable. Music. About that time a nurse manager decided that the piano should be removed from the day area, the guitars should not be available for the patients to use, and there would be only battery operated radios allowed, that is if a patient was fortunate enough to have someone to bring one. And so it has been since then. When a patient says, as happened this week, how listening to music would soothe her, I offer a lame excuse how it is no longer "policy" to have radios and try to act somehow as if I get it even though I don't. We do however still have an old, out of tune upright in the hospital gym that patients can play or bang on when they are in there. Tonight we had a male patient who maxed out the abilities of those keys with some early rock and roll songs. His mania inspired some of the others to sing along and everyone had fun. It dawned on me...music is one of the pleasures of work that is now missing. And its healing properties are almost entirely being withheld from the patients.