Pediatric vs Adult floors

Today I had an interview on a pediatric rehabilitation floor. The floor looks like a wonderful place to have kids. The floors are wood, the walls are painted. Their are stars on the ceiling, fish tanks and lots of color on the walls- a great mural that the kids have painted. All meals are eaten in a central dining room, all the kids together, and there are child life specialists whose job it is to make being a patient as a kid all a little easier.

My question is, why don't we do this on the adult floors? They are gloomy with white hard marble floors, white walls and beige or tan trim. All the rooms look alike, the flourescent ceiling lights make everybody look a little off and patients who are there on long stays are very isolated. I find it disorienting and I am young and healthy.

Now imagine that you are 68, in pain, on oxygen, trying to walk with a walker carrying your O2 tank and a chest tube. You generally wear glasses, but someone put them in the bedside table a few days ago and it seems like too much work to get them back. You've been in a room with three other patients for two days waiting to improve enough to move to a more private room. In the room you are in, their are 4 tvs going. Beeps every few minutes if an O2 monitor slips off a finger or if someone's heart rate is a little too high. Because of the noise, you haven't slept much and someone is taking your vital signs every couple hours anyway. A person you have never met before today is pushing your IV pole. You have walked in a circle between the four "pods" three times today to get your exercise; now you are circling back around in your pod to find your room. It's all white. You are confused, overwhelmed and you don't know where to go.

I've had patients only make it a few feet out of their room because the floor is so busy, so intense, and so disorienting.

Is a white wall any cleaner than a blue or purple or green wall? Can't there be pictures on the walls and non-flourescent lights? Can the hallways be wider? Can staff be alerted to codes via beepers rather than overhead announcements? Can their be a central dining room for patients without infectious diseases? What about a room with a few computers for adults to use? How come on the pediatric floor there is always room for a family member to sleep but not on the adult floor? Families are important for us too. Why is it that as adults we are expected to be immune to the physical environment? If I had a choice, I'd prefer to be on a pediatric floor. It's more humane.