Most of our clients have
paralysis and use a wheelchair to mobilise. Having the opportunity
to be exposed to gardening for health and sustainability could
improve the quality of life for clients and their whanau.
Data collected for the year 06-07
indicates that our ethnicity diversity is represented in the
following statistics: 26.5% of clients identify as Maori; 17.5% of
clients identify as Pacific Island; 7% of clients are of Asian
descent and 49% identify as Pakeha.
The Auckland Spinal
Rehabilitation Unit has great potential in land area around the
buildings and there are several possible sites identified that could
easily be converted into gardens to suit the purposes of growing
plants and gardening activities.
Value the gardens offers:
The unused bowling green at the
back of the Spinal Unit has been converted to specially designed
garden plots for patients and officially opened on 5th December 2009
by Dame Cath Tizard who is a patron of the Robert McIsaacs Memorial
Trust.
The Robert McIsaac Memorial Trust generous donation
has been instrumental in getting the garden established in the
initial costly stages of setting up the raised beds and fruit
forest. Other donations have been gratefully received in the
form of soil, plants, garden implements and labour.
The fruit forest on the patient's lawn is
starting to bear fruit and the raised beds, once bare, are now brimming full of
organically grown vegetables.
The
activity level in this area has also increased. Besides attracting
the pukeko from the Otara estuary, there are families visiting
patients, staff eating lunches and gardeners from other regions
wondering amongst the vegetables gardens and fruit forest.
Staff
have joined in enthusiastically by cultivating ground plots, along
side spinal injured inpatients and outpatients who occupy the raised
beds. The raised beds are specially designed to enable easy manoeuvrability
and access for people in wheelchairs.
As
word spreads, more plots are being developed and the competition is
spreading amongst the departments and patients to produce the best
looking vegetables.
There is a garden mentor on site
to help guide participants with any gardening issues, co-ordinate
the garden plots and share their horticulture knowledge and
experience.
