Galerie Buhler Gallery Curator hannah_g with one of the Patient Art Menu paintings.
March 16, 2026
St. Boniface Hospital patients who have to stay with us for a while are getting something more to look at, thanks to a pilot program featuring Manitoba art.
The Hospital’s on-site Galerie Buhler Gallery (GBG) is offering some longer-term patients the chance to enjoy looking at beautiful artwork they’ve chosen for their own rooms.
The Patient Art Menu program invites selected patients, admitted for at least two weeks, to pick from a spiral-bound book of 16 paintings in the Gallery’s collection by Manitoba artists. Once they have made their choice, a St. B facilities worker hangs the framed painting where the patient can see it from their bed. Most are smaller in size, keeping the limitations of a hospital room in mind.
The first artwork was hung in June 2025, said GBG Curator hannah_g, who developed the Patient Art Menu with GBG student intern Julia Jennings and St. B nurse manager Katie North.
It gives patients a sense of autonomy, hannah explained. “They’re able to make a choice about something in their life, and that is very empowering for people. Not every patient has a window in their room. Just being able to have somewhere they can look which is not medical, or grey architecture, is important,” she said.