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Yuma Regional Cancer Center Seeks Healing Art Work

Stephanie Sanchez

Yuma-A happy environment is a safe environment.

That’s the thinking behind a push at the Yuma’s local cancer center to create a welcoming space for cancer patients receiving treatment. 

KAWC’s Stephanie Sanchez has more on the Yuma Regional Cancer Center’s Art Heals project.

Laura Dana is an artist and a cancer survivor.  Fifteen of her paintings hang on the walls of the Yuma Regional Medical Center's Cancer Center.

"They're flowers, bright colorful, cheerful," Dana said.

Dana painted as a way to relieve stress while she was battling stage 4 ovarian cancer. She wasn't' t treated here, but she knows what its like to be sitting in a bare room undergoing chemotherapy.

"It's so nice to be able to sit there and not look at a wall...or nothing," Dana said.

YRMC's vice president of marketing and support services Machelle Headington said after hearing comments like that, the hospitals launched the "Art Heals Exhibit".

Now they’re calling on the community to contribute to the exhibit.   Anyone can submit their work, but Headington said they really want to hear from locals who have faced cancer in their lives – as patients or family and friends of cancer victims and survivors.

The purpose is to create a healing environment.

"I think they have a greater purpose," Headington said. "For patients to be able to use this, the visual stimulation of a piece of art to help them heal and feel better, even if it’s for 30 seconds.”

The exhibit will officially launch this Fall, with works rotated every 90 days.  The art will be chosen by the patients.

The deadline to submit work is May 31st.

Credit Stephanie Sanchez
Laura Dana, a cancer survivor, says she painted as a way to relieve stress.