Funny journey that that lived by Véronique Addor. But today, she thinks that her cross knowledge can serve her plans.
Jean-Marc Corset
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In this post-pandemic period, epidemiologist Véronique Addor recalls the power of interior decoration on health and well-being.
Chantal devrey
Trained in the health world, epidemiologist, Véronique Addor knows the importance of the mask. But the resident of Lavaux also likes to wear it, she who appeared in scenic postures with the Hundred Swiss in the Fête des Vignerons and exhibited at the Venice Carnival, masked, even when the first cases of coronavirus were beginning to scare Italy. Accessories, decor, staging are part of his life just like the middle of white blouses. In this post-pandemic period, she intends more than ever to divide herself between her two professions.
Véronique Addor’s course is not drawn as a straight line. It is made of zigzags and flip-flops. This woman in her fifties, who worked on the pandemic plans of four Cantons, including Vaud and Ticino, where she rubbed shoulders with Ignazio Cassis, then cantonal doctor, found herself one day without prospect of work in the field of ‘epidemiology. She then decided to highlight her experience in project management as well as her health training in active listening to individual needs and well-being at the service of her passion for interior decoration.
Inactive epidemiologist
Despite a mandate during the pandemic to set up Covid ambulatory consultation centers in Nyon and Gland, she is currently finding her hands crossed in her first activity. “I live the height of the epidemiologist,” she said without really enjoying his remark. Because she would now like to share her knowledge of the two professions she masters. And the task is not easy in this period of budgetary restrictions.
His small business Addor Design, launched in early 2018, is aimed at individuals – targeting expatriates – as well as in therapeutic offices, law firms and businesses. They should be particularly concerned at this time because, despite the precise health security measures of the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), they often do not know how to adapt them concretely on their premises. Véronique Addor thus advises them on the most appropriate layouts, signage or paints to avoid contamination. The health professional proposes to include this aspect in the context of occupational medicine and prevention.
Interior decoration, I see it as an instrument of health and well-being.
Véronique Addor
In medical offices, she often observes clinical reception conditions in terms of layout and not very conducive to reassuring patients. “Interior decoration, I see it as an instrument of health and well-being,” she remarks. This is where I bring my experience. Through ideas for the layout of spaces, combinations of colors, materials, furniture, I want to create an atmosphere that gives off positive energy, in harmony with our way of life, present, past and projected. ”
A thought that also naturally applies to individual dwellings. For her, the decor can be “a staging and reflect a theatrical, poetic or reassuring intention”. We think of the spirit of events such as the Fête des Vignerons, which influences Véronique Addor. But as revealed by its Grandvaux habitat, open on Lake Geneva, above the vineyards and the railways, it is just as inspired by its private and professional trips.
She draws her decorating ideas from very diverse cultures, in particular from countries where she lived for a certain time such as the United States, England, Denmark, but also the East and the Middle East: Lebanon and Afghanistan , where she spent two years on behalf of the Red Cross between 1988 and 1989. In her home, we see traces of it, like her other trips, in the form of objects and accessories.
Passed by Johns-Hopkins
Véronique Addor began her professional career at La Source School of Nursing before leaving on an ICRC mission to Kabul. “When I returned, I understood that hospital care did not alone meet the health needs of the population.” She is doing a master’s degree in public health at the famous Johns-Hopkins University in Baltimore, in the United States. Returning to Switzerland, she specializes in the fields of maternal and child health, playing in particular an important role in the legalization of abortion. After twelve years of research, she obtained a job as an adviser to the Ministry of Health in Denmark as part of a WHO pilot project.
Regarding the pandemic, she notes that the Canton of Vaud was one of the first to prepare for it by creating a committee of experts in 2009 bringing together all operational stakeholders around different crisis scenarios. We were talking about avian flu, then swine flu. Unfortunately, she judges, lawyers, economists and financiers have taken precedence in the hospital and health fields over epidemiologists. Registered unemployed, she hopes that at the time of questioning, the new priorities will give her a place in her basic job while leaving her an open door to exercise her second activity and reconcile her two skills.
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