Hospital green spaces become year-round sanctuaries
In support of mental health week, the Northern Sydney Local Health District (NSLHD) has been launching NatureFix across five of Sydney’s major hospitals including: Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Hospital, Manly Adolescent and Young Adult Hospice (AYAH), Mona Vale Hospital, Macquarie Hospital and Royal North Shore Hospital.
Opening of the Macquarie Hospital Wellness Trail
As an innovative, fun and engaging ‘healthscape’ experience, NatureFix unlocks the health benefits of nature through short self-guided sensory activities that are carefully matched with the natural features known to improve wellbeing. The greenspace installations amplify the health benefits of the hospital campus gardens by creating an outdoor experience for patients, visitors and staff. The nature wellness trails and zones unlock the health benefits of nature by providing guided routines that utilise green spaces to create feelings of calm, restoration and welcome. They can be used by individuals for personal relaxation, reflection, and solitude, to support counselling and support services or enjoyed as special times with family and friends.
Addressing health worker burnout, naturally...
There is increasing international calls to sound an alarm on burnout among health workers. Health workers, including physicians, nurses, community and public health workers, nurse aides, among others, have long faced systemic challenges in the health care system, now exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Opportunities to promote and support mental health and wellbeing for frontline health workers is an important priority in addressing this health crisis.
Whilst health personnel burnout is growing, data shows that immersion in nature improves overall wellbeing and reduces feelings of anxiety, depression and mental fatigue (all well-established contributors to job burnout). One research study showed that taking daily work breaks in an outdoor garden mitigated burnout for nurses. [1]
NSLHD’s Healthy Built Environments Program Manager Jonathon Noyes, recognises the importance of creating health facilities that support the health and wellbeing of the whole community.
"These NatureFix Wellness Zones provide a much-needed space on our hospital campuses to support and enhance mental and emotional wellbeing. Encouraging staff, patients and indeed the local community to spend more meaningful time in our hospital gardens and green spaces – even for short periods of time - is an easy, low-cost, high-reward intervention with proven benefits of reduced stress and improved wellbeing. By using the NatureFix app for as little as 20 minutes a week and accessing the sensory mindfulness routines specifically selected for each site, we are now able to unlock and amplify the health benefits of nature.”
[1] A study conducted in a Portland, Oregon level one trauma centre assigned nurses to either six weeks of a work break in an outdoor hospital garden or six weeks of indoor-only breaks, switching at the end of each six-week period. The results were notable: nurses found a significant reduction in emotional exhaustion when breaks were spent in the greenspace setting. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328673948_Impact_of_Nurses_Taking_Daily_Work_Breaks_in_a_Hospital_Garden_on_Burnout