The French call the art of making bouquets a bouquet. The Japanese raise the emotional level through ikebana: a floral technique that seeks to achieve balance and harmony between flowers, branches and space. Words are certainly neither bouquet nor ikebana … Which comes to the minds of patients and visitors who see Rosa Rabadan passing through Los Montalvos Hospital in Salamanca. It is loaded with flowers, bamboo, pitchers and scissors…florist who comes to arrange. This would be a quick and superficial description of what Rosa was doing, for a decade, at the Salamanca Hospital. Their mission is more emotional, profound and transcendent. Every bouquet of flowers at the hospital means something special. Those of Rosa, a volunteer in the hospital’s palliative care unit, and more. To understand it, we accompany it.
Today, it arrives with its cargo in the room of Fara, who is just over 50 years old. He arrived in Spain a few years ago from West Africa, and is in a special hospital unit with only 15 beds. The one intended for people who are seriously ill or at the end of their life. “Hello Fara. Let’s make the center“Says Rosa when she arrives.
“I chose brightly colored flowers: yellow, white and orange. “I never choose sad tones, I look for flowers that give light and life,” says Rosa. “Flowers are a tool for communication,” he adds. “I go with them and it breaks the ice.” It allows me to monitor how the patient and family are doing at this moment.. Sometimes, just these details open up a conversation. They talk about flowers, but also about children, care and life. “It’s a more spiritual, more human connection.”
We live with our backs to death
Talking about death remains an outstanding task in society. “We live a lot with our backs to her,” Rosa muses. We should look at it as a natural process. If we understand it better, we can communicate better with our families and… Face those moments without much fear».
Eva Tejedor, palliative care program coordinator, agrees: “Sometimes families and patients protect each other and don’t talk. A pact of silence was formed. We try to break that down, but always respect each other’s rhythm. The main thing is for the patient to decide what he wants to know and how to spend his time. “That’s also the interest.” In Fara’s room the bouquet becomes the center. “Fara was in a lot of pain and is better now. She also brought papyrus, which seems to me to be a powerful plant, and something even more strange,” Rosa explains. Let’s get to work. Rosa talks about flowers. Fara tells things about her country and her family. “In the end, this center tells its story,” Rosa concludes.
Unexpected intimacy
Ikebana seeks the relationship between heaven, earth and man. “The three elements that support each other. Perhaps the man is the main flower, or the sky. “What’s important is balance,” Rosa explains. “They are living flowers that cannot be forced,” Rosa explains. You can’t force people to say what they don’t want to say.. You have to take care of them, keep them watered, and keep an eye on them. “This also turns the patient into a caregiver,” he adds. The process of ikebana often creates a space of unexpected intimacy. It happened with Vara: “He talked about the flowers as if they were his family. “He built a center that represented his world,” says Rosa. Eva recounts the process: “When Rosa walks in with a centerpiece of flowers, the atmosphere changes. Sometimes the patient participates in doing this, choosing flowers and placing them. A different, more natural conversation is created. Topics arise that maybe you wouldn’t dare talk to a doctor. “It’s a way to open up the conversation and give them a role, a little responsibility, something to take care of.”
Rosa has been collaborating with her flowers for 10 years. In Castile and León, Eva is 17 years old. “In 2024, we treated 2,310 patients in the community – he explains -, about 500 in Salamanca alone. “They are people with advanced disease, mostly in palliative care: cancer patients, but also kidney disease or neurodegeneration.”
A pioneering initiative
The work of both was framed in La Caixa Foundation’s Comprehensive Care Program for People with Advanced Diseases.“, a pioneering initiative that has been working for 15 years to promote humane care for patients and their families through psychosocial care teams (EAPS). These teams – composed of psychologists, social workers, health workers and volunteers like Rosa – have accompanied more than 300,000 patients and 385,000 family members across the country since their inception. The accompaniment is medical, emotional and also, like Rosa’s ikebana, floral. «Flowers change the atmosphere, adding serenity and colour. She concludes “It’s also a way to take care of your eyes and your soul,” says Rosa.
“People think everything here is sadness, but it’s not,” says Eva. There are very happy moments. For example, the patient participates in a flower workshop and forgets about the illness for a while. “They learn to enjoy the present.”
Rosa says goodbye to Fara. It is not known if they will see each other again. The work of psychological and social teams is not limited to the hospital. There are home support programs designed for those who have been discharged from hospital but still need support. “Not all patients who are admitted to hospital die,” explains Eva. Many do this to control symptoms and then continue at home. The important thing is that they can live and die well, controlling the symptoms and accompanying them to the end.
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