The Prouty Garden, an open expanse of grass and trees between hospital buildings, is a green oasis in the otherwise congested Longwood neighborhood, a stretch that in addition to Boston Children’s includes a knot of other medical institutions, including Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. With its decorative fountain and small stone animals, the garden is also, and above all, a retreat for children forced to spend weeks and sometimes months within hospital walls.
But the surrounding congestion may soon spell the garden’s demise.
Children’s has plans for a 12-story, approximately $600 million expansion that would be built over the garden area, presuming the permits are issued and the plan is approved by the hospital board. That new construction would allow for more single-bed patient rooms.
The garden is the only feasible space left for such expansion, administrators say.
“We’re down to our last square foot,” said Charles Weinstein, vice president for real estate, planning, and development at Children’s.
After exploring 18 other potential building locations over the past five years, he said administrators concluded the garden was the only place that made “technical and financial” sense. Three-quarters of the permitting process has been completed, Weinstein said, and if all goes as hoped, construction could begin as early as next year.
Weinstein believes the new building is a key step in improving patient care. Single-bed rooms decrease the risk of infection, he said, and usually result in shorter and more pleasant hospital stays....
To compensate for building over the garden, and as part of an effort to increase green space in the hospital, the new addition will include several indoor and outdoor gardens, Weinstein said, including a rooftop terrace and interior sanctuary on the 12th floor. The garden space will total about 34,000 square feet, and the interior space will be usable year-round and by patients too sick to go outdoors. Studies have consistently shown that green space encourages healing and can help alleviate anger, stress, and pain.
But no new green space will be as continuously large as the Prouty Garden....
“The garden was such a place of peace.”
Anne Gamble, a retired volunteer at Boston Children’s who oversees the petition, said the Prouty Garden offers something no indoor garden can: birds, fresh air, and grass. On her latest visit to the garden earlier this spring, she said she saw a young girl, maybe 12 years old, sitting by the fountain.
“I stopped and chatted with her and her mother and found out that this was the first time she had been allowed outside in three weeks,” Gamble said. “Her mother told me the garden was making a world of difference. Children need to see the sky and birds flying and just absorb the space and fresh air.”
On a recent weekday, the garden bustled with activity. It was an especially warm summer afternoon, and as patients ambled about and staff ate their lunches two musicians harmonized by the old dawn redwood....
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Related:
"Family’s agonizing trail leads to infant’s surgery" by Bella English | Globe Staff, January 29, 2013
Though Mary Gundrum’s pregnancy posed an extraordinary challenge, the painful decision of whether to continue a pregnancy when things go terribly wrong is one many couples face as prenatal tests become so routine and so accurate. For any parent, it is a moment of dread and anguish.
The Gundrums, devout Catholics and the parents of seven other children, decided to continue the uncertain pregnancy. The decision would take them from their home outside Milwaukee to Boston, where a family they had never met opened its doors and hearts to them, and where a top-notch medical team at Boston Children’s Hospital performed groundbreaking surgery to help their baby.
It was a journey that led them from despair to hope....
--more--"
"Family’s agonizing trail leads to infant’s surgery" by Bella English | Globe Staff, January 29, 2013
Though Mary Gundrum’s pregnancy posed an extraordinary challenge, the painful decision of whether to continue a pregnancy when things go terribly wrong is one many couples face as prenatal tests become so routine and so accurate. For any parent, it is a moment of dread and anguish.
The Gundrums, devout Catholics and the parents of seven other children, decided to continue the uncertain pregnancy. The decision would take them from their home outside Milwaukee to Boston, where a family they had never met opened its doors and hearts to them, and where a top-notch medical team at Boston Children’s Hospital performed groundbreaking surgery to help their baby.
It was a journey that led them from despair to hope....
--more--"
