June 1, 2006 | Read Time: 3 minutes
The Healing Garden has proven itself as a rooftop oasis at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in downtown Phoenix.
Banner Good Samaritan
has done a lot to try to make its facility welcoming, like painting walls in soothing colors and buying high-quality gowns for the patients, but being in the hospital is still difficult for patients, says Sandra M. Corder, director of patient relations and volunteer services.
“When they’re lying in a bed, they’re looking at a ceiling,” she says. “They’re hearing the noises of the staff outside their door, the bells and the whistles of machines that are attached to other patients. By getting outside, they have the opportunity to be with their family, to be away from feeling like they’re in a hospital.”
In the garden, patients are surrounded by plants chosen for both their appeal to the senses and their ability to withstand Phoenix’s arid climate. The scent of cherry red sage wafts through the air as its vibrant flowers attract hummingbirds and butterflies. Burbling fountains represent the cycle of life. And wireless monitoring devices hidden in the trees allow heart patients to leave their rooms and get outside safely.
The gently undulating plant terraces were even designed to create a visually pleasing, almost sculptural, view for patients in surrounding hospital towers whose rooms overlook the garden.
But when the Healing Garden was built in 1998, therapeutic gardens were a relatively new idea. Some staff members and donors questioned whether a nonprofit hospital could justify spending $750,000 on a garden. So the hospital decided not to use any operating funds for its construction. The hospital’s auxiliary raised $500,000, and the rest of the money came from doctors, nurses, and other staff members.
Since then, attitudes have changed as hospital staff members and others have seen the garden in use, says Ms. Corder.
Many times, she says, doctors who have difficult news to deliver will ask family members to meet them in the garden for a cup of coffee.
“It’s provided an arena for physicians to sit down and spend a little bit more time with the family member versus standing at the bedside where the patient is listening or standing in the nurses’ station in a very cold, sterile environment,” says Ms. Corder.
Banner Good Samaritan recently underwent a large-scale renovation, during which the hospital added several more gardens. According to Ms. Corder, the hospital didn’t encounter any of the resistance it did when planning the original garden.
When the Healing Garden was built, the architects worked with Joan Baron, a local tile artist, to transform support columns into colorful mosaics. Now donors can purchase tiles, which Ms. Baron creates, to honor or memorialize a loved one. The money raised goes toward the garden’s maintenance.
The only stipulation, says Ms. Corder, is that the tile must be positive, rather than giving a name and birth and death dates.
“We didn’t want any of that,” she says. “It is not a memorial garden. It’s a positive, healing experience.”
