LYNN — BayRidge Hospital, a behavior health and substance use treatment hospital on Granite Street, rests on top of a tall hill and finds plenty of sunlight during the spring and summer months.
And for the past two gardening seasons, patients, with the help of Director of Food and Nutrition, and the Sustainability and Wellness Coordinator for Beth Israel Lahey Health Amy Galvin, have been using the courtyard in the back to grow an extensive herb and vegetable garden.
“Their lives are kind of paused at the moment,” Galvin said.
Realizing this after a while of working there, she said that having a place for patients to go and enjoy themselves and also take ownership of, even if it is just to water plants for 20 minutes, would give them something to look forward to.
Galvin said the idea for the garden sprouted when she noticed empty garden beds in the courtyard.
The garden has now become an outlet for her and other staff members to talk to patients about food and nutrition, such as the benefits of buying food locally, where patients buy their food, and their own eating habits.
“We noticed it was a good way to build trust with them,” Galvin said. “A lot of people don’t feel comfortable talking to you in a clinical setting. And I learn a lot from them, just like sitting in the dirt with them, laying in the grass, or playing chalk with them.”
Galvin said it helps patients, whether they are there for a few days or several months break out of routine, leave their rooms, and take ownership of something while they’re there.
She added staff will join the patients outside as well. “They’re very willing to open up to you and talk to you just about anything.”
As of now, the garden is filled with sprouting pumpkins, watermelons, peppers, tomatoes, strawberries, lemons, oregano, thyme, and basil. Galvin said the patients are looking to grow more flowers in the upcoming year.
Galvin said patients can pick the fresh crop and they will use it to go along with their meals from the kitchen.
“They get creative,” she said. “They’ll be like ‘oh, I’m just gonna go pick a bunch of stuff and I’ll save it for dinner and put it in my pasta primavera.’”
Before patients leave, Galvin said they will show new patients where they planted new “treats,” and how to take care of them.
She noted a recent patient from another country who used some of the herbs to make her own tea.
Her favorite thing about food is that people do not have to know the same language to enjoy it together, she added.
“You don’t have to be from the same place, but food, you can always break bread with somebody, because food is the same everywhere,” Galvin said. “Food is food.”
Galvin said patients share garden beds because doing so allows them to enjoy a community experience.
Patients also play with chalk, writing their names and kind messages to each other in a gazebo that is inside the courtyard. Recently, they held a cookout.
She added the idea of needing to pay to rent a plot in a community garden just worsens food insecurity.
‘It’s kind of like a collective garden for BayRidge,” Sonya Vartabedian, media relations manager said. “So they can feel like they’re working together through it. They’re not isolated.”
Galvin said she hopes to see this initiative spread across other hospitals, particularly those in the Beth Israel system.
She added she is also hoping to expand the food program to include a food pharmacy, so people who have been previous patients can benefit from a food prescription, which would include fresh food from local farms.
Galvin, who also helps patients connect to registered dietitians and leads healthy eating awareness campaigns in the hospital, said she is also hoping to secure more funding to to spread the food pharmacy and garden initiative within the Beth Israel system.
“This is where we are at as a society,” she said. “People are very interested in where their food is coming from.”
