Local doctors can now prescribe a free trip to Conservation Halton’s (CH) many parks as part of their patients' mental health care.
CH, Halton Healthcare and BC Parks Foundation made the announcement Monday (Dec. 2) at Kelso Conservation Area.
A prescription from a qualified physician entitles patients with mental health issues to 10 free visits to a Conservation Halton park. These can be received from doctors from Milton District, Oakville Trafalgar Memorial, Georgetown Hospitals or any clinic in the region.
“The level of anxiety and depression in our community has skyrocketed. The isolation during COVID has played a huge role in that,” Halton Healthcare's Dr. Subani Selvarajah told MiltonToday.
“I would say this is number one,” Selvarajah said when asked how this will be prioritized as a mental health treatment option. “This is easy and it will be free for patients to access. So I don’t see that there are any huge limitations to accessing this.”
PaRx, as the program is called, was conceived by the BC Parks Foundation in 2020 and is Canada’s first program prescribing nature as a treatment. Halton Healthcare is the first hospital system in the country to adopt the therapeutic solution.
Being in nature has myriad benefits to the mind, with an American Psychological Association study stating that “spending time in nature can act as a balm for our busy brains." For example, the APA stated that “Adults assigned to public housing units in neighbourhoods with more green space showed better attentional functioning than those assigned to units with less access to natural environments.”
The policy is a continuation of what doctors have already been doing under a therapy option called “lifestyle counselling.” PaRx formalizes the practice while knocking down barriers. “The recommendation of spending time outside in nature has always been there,” Selvarajah said. “This will encourage [patients] to explore different settings.”
Milton MP Adam van Koeverden remarked that “people are going to be healthier in Halton because everybody stood up and said, ‘Yeah, it’s a good idea.”
“I think a lot of Physicians who may not have considered this in the past will have a meeting and say ‘Hey, have you considered this?,’” van Koeverden told the gathering at Kelso.
Once prescribed, patients receive a code that they can enter on CH’s website, enabling them to take advantage of the therapy.
“Conservation Halton has been connecting the community to nature for over 60 years, with eight unique conservation areas,” said CH CEO Chandra Sharma. “This partnership that we are celebrating today allows us to open our Green Space and conservation areas to our community in an entirely different way.”
The BC Parks Foundation's website has more details about PaRx. Family physicians and other healthcare providers are encouraged to join the program to allow them to offer nature prescriptions.