Ring the ward. That is the whole of the advice, and it is skipped by almost
everybody, which is why so many bouquets are quietly redirected at Irish hospital
reception desks.
Flower policies in Irish hospitals vary by hospital, by ward and by year, and
several categories of unit never take them at all. Intensive care, high
dependency, oncology, transplant and neonatal units are the consistent no. A
general medical or surgical ward might be fine, or might not be, depending on the
hospital's own infection control policy.
Why the rules exist
The reasons are more mundane than dramatic. Standing water in a vase is a minor
infection risk that stops being minor around immunosuppressed patients. Pollen
and scent are a real problem for people who are nauseated, or on treatment that
has made their sense of smell unbearable. And every vase on a ward is something a
nurse ends up filling, moving to reach a patient, and emptying at discharge.
None of that is a florist's fault, and none of it will be mentioned on a website
selling get well bouquets.
If flowers are allowed
Keep it small, unscented and self-contained.
Small, because a hospital locker top holds a water jug, a phone, a pair of
glasses and very little else. A large arrangement gets moved to a windowsill and
forgotten.
Unscented, which rules out lilies, stocks, freesia, hyacinth and oriental
varieties generally. Tulips, ranunculus, alstroemeria, gerbera, chrysanthemums
and most commercial roses have little to no scent and are the right shortlist.
For anyone on chemotherapy, treat scent as an outright no rather than a
preference.
Self-contained, meaning an arrangement in a container that already holds
water. Nobody on a ward should be looking for a vase.
The timing problem
The average stay is shorter than the flowers last. Someone admitted on a Monday
can be home by Thursday, and a bouquet delivered on the Wednesday then has to be
carried out to a car with a bag of clothes and a discharge letter.
Sending to the house for the day they get home is nearly always the better move.
The house is also where the long, dull part of recovery happens, which is when
something arriving actually registers. Ask a family member for the discharge day
rather than guessing.
When flowers are refused
Send something that fits in a locker.
- Hand cream and lip balm. Hospital air is dry and this is the most used gift on
any ward.
- Long phone charging cable. Sockets are never where the bed is.
- Headphones, a book, a crossword book, a magazine.
- A card with an actual message in it, not just a signature.
Then send flowers to the house afterwards. A bunch arriving the week after a
discharge, when the visitors have stopped and the person is bored and sore, is
better timed than anything that reached the ward.
Sending to a house
For a person recovering at home, the same rules mostly apply and one new one is
added: they may not be able to get to the door easily. Say so in the delivery
notes, ask the driver to leave it in a porch or with a neighbour, or send
letterbox flowers, which post flat through the door and need nobody to be
standing behind it. That case is set out on
letterbox flowers in Ireland.
Once the flowers are in the house, they need almost nothing: a clean vase, a
fresh cut, and water changed every second day. The full routine is on
keeping flowers fresh, and it is worth
putting a line about it on the card if the person is unlikely to bother.
What to write
"Get well soon" is fine for a broken ankle and wrong for a diagnosis. For
anything serious or long-running, it asks the person for a result they cannot
produce.
Better lines are the plain ones. "Thinking of you this week." "The place is
quiet without you, come back when you are ready." "I will ring on Sunday." That
last one is the best of them, on the condition that you ring on Sunday.
The cheaper alternative worth considering
A plant. An orchid, a peace lily for a house with no cat, or a small pot of
something green costs about the same as a mid-range bouquet and is still there in
six months, which for a long recovery is the point.
And for anyone home for weeks rather than days, a standing arrangement of
something every fortnight beats one large bouquet. Two 30 euro deliveries a month
apart do more than one 60 euro delivery, because the second one arrives when
everyone else has forgotten.