Hospital proposes a healing garden

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, January 9, 2005

MONROE – By late spring, Valley General Hospital hopes to have its first healing garden, an oasis for patients, family members and staff to gather away from traditional hospital settings.

The garden will be in a 40-foot-by-80-foot space on an inner courtyard that can be viewed from patient rooms and along a hospital hallway, said Martha Dankers, a volunteer who is heading up the project.

“We want it to be a kind of space where people will sit and really enjoy themselves,” she said.

A second garden, to be started in the fall, will be larger, about 60 feet by 100 feet, she said.

The hospital is looking for gardeners, landscapers and others who enjoy working with plants to volunteer for the projects.

In planning for its garden, the Monroe hospital joins health-care facilities throughout the nation in providing plants, flowers, fountains, small pools or flowing water and a place for quiet on its grounds.

In Seattle, Cancer Lifeline, a support organization for cancer patients and their families, Children’s Hospital &Regional Medical Center and the University of Washington Medical Center all have healing gardens.

“Hospital stays can be stressful and disorienting; you lose track of time and space,” said Carol Parry, family centered care coordinator at Children’s. “It’s important to escape to somewhere that brings you back to who you are.”

Gardens have been associated with healing for centuries, from Japanese Zen gardens to monastic cloister gardens, according to a University of Minnesota Web site on healing gardens. Among other benefits, researchers have found that gardens can lower stress.

The Monroe hospital hopes to have the design of its first garden ready in February and have the garden open in April or May.

“There should be area of privacy, areas where you can gather with family friends, where staff can kind of recharge their batteries,” Dankers said.

“Sitting there in their hospital bed, they’re drawn to this space for tranquility, a familiar comforting nature experience.

“It’s such an important part of healing.”