Saturday, 29 July 2017

Stapleford's 'Hemlock Room' — is it bad taste, funny or a point of view?

Yesterday morning I went to my dentist, who is based in Stapleford Care Centre. On the first floor there is this door...


...with a sign saying 'Hemlock Room'.  The other sign on the door says 'Sheila Gibson Unit'.

The Sheila Gibson Unit is what? Well, follow the above link and see for yourself.

My take on the name immediately was that someone was pissed off with the services offered by the Sheila Gibson Unit and was making a statement about them — hemlock is a poison, famously taken by Socrates.

At the other extreme it could be someone making a reference to the town's famous 'Hemlock Stone', but when you realise that the weblink says this is the 'Broxtowe Day Unit (which) offers a range of group and individual therapies for older adults diagnosed with a mental health condition' you may, like me, read the room name and wonder as to how it was chosen?

If the decision to call the it the 'Hemlock Room' is official then it is in bad taste and shows a lack of sensitivity towards older folk with mental health needs or am I just an over-sensitive oldie?

Oh I know posting this will flush out a few nasties keen to say all us oldies are past our sell by dates, so poisoning us all to death is a good idea and if the NHS wants to do it, yippee!

'Uneasy' probably best sums up how I feel about seeing a door in a 'Care Centre' labelled the 'Hemlock Room'.

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