When people step into a hospital, they’re often looking for an answer to a problem. What’s wrong with my stomach? Can the pain in my hand go away? How do I feel better?
While nurses and doctors are there to solve those problems, they’re also working to prevent future ones. Simplified, a hospital’s job is twofold: react and prevent.
On the roof of the Boston Medical Center, they’re preventing by growing.
The hospital’s 2,658-square-foot rooftop farm grows fresh produce for its food-insecure patients. These patients are referred to the Boston Medical Center’s Preventative Food Pantry. There, they gain access to over 25 crops and can take home fresh food for their entire household every two weeks.
“The Preventive Food Pantry helps fill the gap for those who would otherwise be unable to access affordable, nutritious food, and this expansion further demonstrates BMC’s commitment to addressing the underlying social factors that affect a patient’s health,” Thea James, MD, vice president of mission and associate chief medical officer at BMC, said in a news release.
Kale, carrots, onions, cauliflower, eggplants and radishes are all grown in the rooftop plant beds, creating over 6,000 pounds of food each year. A little under half goes directly home with patients, and the remainder is used for the hospital’s cafeteria, teaching kitchen and in-house farmers market, which is held in the lobby every week during the summer months.
The food pantry opened in 2001, and the garden opened in 2016 to provide the pantry with more fresh produce.
“BMC for a long time has had a mission that food is medicine,” farm manager Lindsay Allen told WHDH.
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The foods we eat can be a direct indicator of how healthy we are. Studies show that eating more processed and fried foods can increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes and death. But the reverse is true, too: People who consume more fresh fruits and vegetables are likely to live longer and healthier lives.
With that in mind, BMC got to growing. Patients are given a prescription to the pantry, where a registered dietician helps them customize a plan and pick out food based on their health needs. The patient can also pick up food for their entire household. In 2017, the pantry worked with over 83,000 individuals.
“When they provide a patient with a prescription, it becomes part of your medical care. It’s more like going to the pharmacy. They do not hesitate to come,” Latchman Hiralall, manager of the Food Pantry, told Boston Magazine.
But the benefits extend past healthy eating for patients and in the cafeteria. It cuts down on the hospital’s carbon footprint, collects stormwater, creates green space and reduces the energy required by absorbing heat that would otherwise warm a building.
If farm visitors listen closely, they’ll hear a faint buzz. The farm is home to two honeybee hives, which pollinate the crops and produce honey.
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The Boston Medical Center isn’t the only hospital that’s thought of this green idea. Across the country, green roofs are gaining popularity as a way to help eradicate food deserts.
At the John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, patients visit the hospital’s terrace garden and pick vegetables and herbs to incorporate into their meals. Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City transformed its black slate roof into an urban garden five years ago. The space grows herbs and small crops, like strawberries and tomatillos, for the kitchen team to use and for the staff to take home.
As of 2017, 54% of the country’s hospitals are in urban centers. Those hospitals’ patients and staff are more likely to have a hard time finding green space and affordable, healthy food. Rooftop gardens can solve both of those problems, offering a place where people can experience the therapeutic benefits of nature and gain access to fresh food.
So the next time you’re walking past a hospital, look up and you might find something green.
More: Why Green Classrooms Could Be the Schools of the Future
Tag: farm to hospital
From Farm to Patient: How One Medical Facility is Rethinking Hospital Food
The words “hospital food” usually inspire thoughts of rubbery jello and syrupy fruit cups. But the St. Luke’s University Health Network in Easton, Pa. is doing its best to change that.
In the fall of 2013, it teamed up with the Rodale Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to establishing organic farms and spreading organic practices, to establish a produce farm serving the hospital network. The farm’s harvest quota for this season (its first) was set at 44,000 pounds from five acres of tilled land; as of this writing, it’s is on track to exceed that amount.
The excess land used for the farm is part of the St. Luke’s Anderson Campus, the newest addition to the St. Luke’s hospital network. Opening its doors three years ago, the hospital itself covers about 40 acres – but in total, it owns 500 acres of land. The additional land was acquired, according to Anderson Campus hospital president Edward Nawrocki, as part of a long-term expansion strategy.
Last year, however, Nawrocki began looking for creative ways to use the extra real estate. Some employees suggested an organic farm, an idea that Nawrocki jumped on.
He contacted the Rodale Institute and spoke with executive director Mark “Coach” Smallwood. Coach started looking for a farm manager and quickly decided upon Lynn Trizna, a young woman involved in organic farming that Coach identified as “a farmer without a farm.”
Nawrocki, “Farmer Lynn”, and Coach picked a site for the farm and a smaller, five-acre parcel for the first season. Following organic practices, 12 types of produce— from tomatoes to kale to beets — were planted.
Often, ripe produce is picked in the morning, transported, prepared and served the same day.
“Health care in the past was about sick care. We got paid when people got sick.” says Nawrocki. “In the next decade, it’s going to be about keeping people well.”
But this change doesn’t come without challenges. The existing food vendor, Sodexo, has had to modify its food acquisition practices to incorporate the local produce since many of the items it sources already come prepared. Farmer Lynn and Nawrocki have taken a hands-on approach to working with Sodexo on menu modifications, something that the vendor’s staff is excited and proud of.
Currently, the Rodale Farm organic produce is served in the cafeteria, plus it’s also gradually being incorporated into the patients’ meals, as many are on restricted diets.
As the farm grows, Nawrocki and Farmer Lynn and Nawrocki are working to expand patient options. Both hope that other hospitals with land investments will adopt this idea, revolutionizing how food is prepared for those who need good nutrition the most. Who knows? Maybe in the future jello cups and prepackaged food will be seen in the same light as bloodletting today – an anachronism of a less sophisticated time.