Neucatel, Switzerland (AP) – Has the misery of the world defeated you? Do you experience burnout at work? Do you need a little extra to fight the illness or are you ready for surgery? The Swiss town of Neukatel offers innovative medical options for its residents. Expose yourself to art and get a doctor’s note to do it for free.
Under the new two-year pilot project, local and local authorities are covering the costs of “museum prescriptions” issued by doctors who believe patients can benefit from a visit to one of the town’s four museums as part of their treatment.
The project is based on a 2019 World Health Organization Report Therefore, art can increase mental health, reduce the effects of trauma, and reduce the risk of cognitive decline, frailty, and “early mortality.”
Art helps to relax the mind as a kind of preventative medicine. And visits to the museum require you to leave and leave the house with physical activities such as walking or standing for long periods of time.
Julie Courcier Delafontaine, a member of the Neuchatel Council, said Covid Crisis also played a role in the Genesis of the program. “With the closure of cultural locations (during the coronavirus lockdown), people have understood how much they need to feel better.”
She said about 500 prescriptions have been distributed to doctors around town so far, and the program is “almost” costing. 10,000 Swiss francs (approximately $11,300) are budgeting.
If successful, local officials could expand the program to other artistic activities such as theatre and dance, Delafontaine said. The Swiss National Healthcare System does not cover “culture as a means of treatment,” but hopes that one day, if the outcome is positive enough, it will likely be possible.
Marianne des Reinier Nevsky is the cultural mediation manager for a town of 46,000, built on a similar idea developed at the Fine Arts Museum in Montreal, Canada in 2019.
She said many types of patients could benefit.
“It could be someone with depression, someone who has trouble walking, someone with chronic illness,” she said near the exhibition of feathered headdresses from Papua New Guinea at the Ethnographic Museum in Neuchel.
Part of the idea is to drive rejection patients out of their homes and walk more.
Dr. Marc-Olivier Sauvain, surgical director at Neuchatel Hospital Network, said that prior to the planned surgery, he had already visited two patients to help them get better.
He said a wider deployment is planned once the control groups are set up. Because of his practice, the focus lies on patients who admit that they have lost their habit of going out. He wants them to move.
“It’s a hopeful idea to think that you’re telling me to go before surgery to improve your fitness level to go for a walk or walk,” Sauvan said in a video call Saturday wearing a blue scrub. “I think these patients will benefit entirely from the museum’s prescriptions, giving them the opportunity to gain physical and intellectual movement.”
“And as a doctor, it’s really great to prescribe a museum visit rather than a drug or test that patients don’t enjoy,” he added. “It’s a medical order that tells them to visit one of our lovely urban museums.”
Museum enthusiasts are also seeing the advantages.
“I think that’s a great idea,” said Cara Flauniere Filler, a poet and retired teacher, during a visit to the Ethnographic Museum. “Every museum in the world should have a prescription!”
