Growing health with brinjals

26 April 2017 - 08:24 By JUSTIN DEFFENBACHER
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Brinjal, eggplant, aubergine, melanzane; whatever you call it, it’s one of those adore it or loathe it things.
Brinjal, eggplant, aubergine, melanzane; whatever you call it, it’s one of those adore it or loathe it things.
Image: Istock

Along the back wall of a Mitchells Plain psychiatric facility, Latief* tends to a row of brinjals. He works quickly, removing dead leaves and pouring water at their bases.

Surrounding Latief, one of the patients at Lentegeur Hospital, is a 1.2ha garden that has been turned into an agricultural operation.

He is taking part in a programme, backed by Western Cape premier Helen Zille, known as the market garden initiative.

The "green therapy" programme is being used to rehabilitate criminal and civilian patients with mental illness, through the therapeutic powers of gardening.

Psychiatrist John Parker started the programme after nine years at Lenteguer, during which he saw rapid patient turnover and high return rates.

"Eventually my work had just become heartbreaking. It felt like a sausage factory, churning out people who just came back sick again, never truly addressing the problems in society," Parker said.

The programme has had great success with more than 80 patients taking part.

Two patients have already been discharged as a result of their participation. Parker said it had rehabilitated some of the hospital's long-term residents.

"The patients we choose are the ones no one could work with. They sat in the wards all day. The only thing they looked forward to was their next cigarette. Now they've been transformed into healthy, fit individuals who love gardening; some are even going home," Parker said.

Latief believes the programme is the reason behind his improvements: "I feel as though I am able to work in the outside world again .like I am normal."

Parker said many were sceptical of the initiative.

But now even the community regarded the hospital differently.

Lenteguer resident gardeners have begun to sell vegetables at markets to try to connect with the community.

"We want to integrate with the community. Our goal is to reach a point at which the image of mental health isn't so stigmatised," director of the Spring Foundation Meryl Smith said.

"In the Cape Flats, a place that has seen far too much suffering, it is great to celebrate something beautiful: the growth of a garden. Patients work in harmony with one another and with nature," Parker said.

* Not his real name

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