LEED Initiatives:  One thing is for sure, the landscaping of PCH will be green in both senses of the word in order to meet requirements put in place by Leadership in Energy &  Environmental Design (LEED). "We have to do low- irrigation planting, use a certain percentage of trees and plants that are native to the area to get LEED points. We are planting 250 trees." The efforts for this initiative impact even the parking lot, Vice-President Planning and Support Services Krista Wells Pearce explains, "The parking lot has to have a certain amount of shade cover within a certain duration of mature trees on the property. The trees and the placement of trees are very intentional for meeting an eventual percentage of shade cover to moderate the urban heat island effect from the sun on the asphalt."  

Rehabilitation Therapy Centre Courtyard: This courtyard will sit right off of the Rehabilitation Therapy Centre and is intended to help rehabilitation patients and outpatients navigate outdoor surfaces that they will have to maneuver in their daily lives. "It's a clinical courtyard that's not dedicated to an inpatient unit. Right now at St. Mary's patients who need to go out and  learn how to navigate a curb or navigate concrete or asphalt, just go to the front yard of the hospital. So that courtyard is a purpose -built exterior therapy space for people to learn to navigate outside," says Krista.   

Healing Garden : The Healing Garden is an exterior worship space.  The  gazebo from our Mental Health Services site will be relocated after it is  restored to its original heritage state as much as possible. That was a requirement of the H eritage C ommittee of the City of Kingston. 

Labyrinth: There's also a labyrinth within the Healing Garden which is adjacent to the cafeteria patio. 
 

Unity Memorial Garden:   A working group was formed with staff from both hospital sites - union and non-union - to talk about how to create the space.  The hospital memorial garden will unite the existing memorials from St. Mary's of Lake Hospital and Mental Health Services that have been identified, and give space for future memorials at Providence Care Hospital.  "We worked with our landscape architect to identify a location and determine how to reallocate trees that were planned for other spots on the property and combine them to create Unity Garden. And we had a staff contest to name the garden. That was just this past fallm," says Krista.

Theresa Beskers:  "The environment will promote strong and intimate connections with nature to create healing, normalize the environment and facilitate the patients' ability to regain function while providing patients with a strong connection to nature as well as calming views of the lake and beautiful grounds."

 

Melanie Rudd: "Some patients in rehabilitation, even though they are here with the goal of returning function, can spend very long amounts of time within the walls of the hospital.  This may be because they are on bedrest for medical reasons or simply cannot tolerate being up for long periods of time. It will be so nice for them to have access to natural light in their room and other spaces within the hospital.  Research has shown that exposure to natural light has improved healing and decreased length of stay. As well for staff, as a nurse that has worked 12 hour shifts some seasons you arrive to work in the dark and go home in the dark, it will be so nice to have exposure to natural light during you work day."

 

Shannon Rubino:  "I believe this will have positive impacts on our patients and clients physical and psychological recovery. I believe it helps connect our patients and clients to the outdoors and can promote a sense of peace and normalization for our longer stay patients and clients and a connection to transitioning into the community for those with us for a shorter stay."