Doctors start terrace garden at trauma centre

It aims at promoting ‘grow your own food’ concept and works as a stress buster for doctors

Advocating the concept of “healthy eating” and “grow your own food”, doctors at the State-run Trauma and Emergency Care Centre, located in the premises of Victoria hospital, have taken up gardening on the terrace. This is the first government hospital in the State where doctors have started gardening.

The hospital, which already has a herbal garden as part of Kayakalp initiative, started the activity last week. Under this scheme, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare assesses government hospitals that promote cleanliness, hygiene, and infection-control practices. The guidelines mandate having a herbal garden on the hospital premises.

S. Balaji Pai, Special Officer of the Centre, told The Hindu on Saturday that the idea was to go green and promote organic food. “It is a good stress buster for our doctors, who are always busy with patients. Now, they can spend some time in gardening and it will relax them,” he said.

“We always wanted to do something different so that there is some unique activity to show during the hospital-assessment programme. We have taken help from a private agency ‘My Dream Garden’ to set up the garden. We have sown vegetables and greens, and are hoping the first harvesting of greens can be done in a month’s time,” he said.

Asima Banu, Professor of Microbiology at Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute, who is the nodal officer at the Centre, said the herbal garden has over 35 plants. “The idea is to promote the natural way of living. We have ashwagandha, tulsi, ginger, garlic, aloe vera and brahmi plants among others. We have enough space on our terrace and wanted to make optimum use of it and hence started terrace gardening,” she said.

“It was fun sowing the seeds. Taking care of the plants amidst our schedule of taking care of patients is a good technique that will relieve us of our stress,” she said.

Asked if they are planning to expand the gardening activity to meet the needs of the in-house kitchen for patients of the Centre, she said it may happen in the future. “As of now, we have started with a small garden, and the yield may not meet the needs of in-patients in all the four hospitals located on the Victoria hospital premises,” she added.