La-Z-Boy Furniture Stores in GLOUCESTER

Élisabeth Bruyère Hospital was looking a little less like a hospital Wednesday after renovations to the palliative-care unit came to an end.

The five year, $1.6-million renovation was meant to help patients who had to spend their last days at the hospital feel more at home. Jean Bartkowiak, chief executive, said the idea came from a recognition that the patients' environment is as important as the care they receive.

"The rooms look even more like home environments, so it's not as institutional as it was," he said. "At the moment, in their health condition, it requires a lot of compas-sion and respect so we thought the environment was also part of the kind of care we are known for offering."

The new environment is more than a fresh coat of paint and some wallpaper. The renovations provided three "family rooms" outfitted with flat screen TVs, DVD players, computers with Internet access and sleek leather couches. The rooms also have kitchenettes and dining room tables so if the patients get tired of hospital food they can have their families over for a home-cooked meal. There's even room for the hospital bed next to the dinner table.

Another room is outfitted with children's toys and a third is stocked with reading materials.

Every one of the unit's 36 rooms got a brand new leather La-Z-Boy armchair, empty frames that patients can slip their own pictures in, and wall lamps complete with lampshades.

Debbie Gravelle, the director of palliative care, said the new lamps are better than the harsh lights usually found in hospitals, even if they make her job harder.

"As a nurse it will drive me nuts sometimes, because I can't see," she said. "But I'll bring a flashlight if I need to."

But not all the additions were purely esthetic. The ward now boasts softer floors to cushion patients if they fall, harnesses to lower patients into specially built bath tubs, and showers that are wheelchair-accessible.

But Lee Martin, the general man-ager of Randall's, the home decorating centre that donated design expertise as well as paint and fabrics, said the esthetics also contribute to a person's well-being.

"I think more and more people are realizing that decor has an impact on people's mental state, or psychology," he said.

Jim Wellman, whose wife spent four months at Élisabeth Bruyère's palliative care ward before she died last September, couldn't agree more.

He says the pictures that now decorate the walls, the patterns imprinted on the ceilings, and all the paint, wallpaper, curtains and furniture keep patients from dwelling on the reason they're in that ward in the first place.

"What have you got to think about? Dying?" he said.

"Makes you think about other things."