The renowned palliative care garden at Queen Margaret Hospital in Dunfermline has been renamed as ‘The Haven‘ and is now being made available to all patients, visitors and staff.
Since its establishment in 2018, the garden has provided a picturesque and peaceful outdoor space for all seasons where patients with palliative care needs could spend time with relatives and friends.
With the support of a number of local businesses and a significant grant from the Fife Health Charity, a small but hugely dedicated committee of volunteers transformed the previously unused courtyard into a bespoke therapeutic garden patients and their friends and families.
In addition to being home to a wide array of plants and flowers, the garden also offers several semi-private seating areas and is decorated with number of carvings and sculptures. The garden has also been designed with patients at its heart, with widened pathways to enable those in wheelchairs and even hospital beds, still able to make use of the much-valued facility.
Some five years after it was first opened, the impressive garden continues to be developed and maintained by the group.
With palliative care provision in Fife transforming in recent years to provide a greater balance of care in Fife’s communities, the committee of volunteers have agreed to change the name of the garden to ‘The Haven’ and for the first time make the facility available to all patients, visitors and staff at the hospital. To coincide with the renaming of the garden, the group have also officially become the Queen Margaret Haven Garden Group.
The volunteer group was first established by Dalgety Bay resident Anne Morton, who wanted to help those in Fife nearing the end of their lives, along with their loved ones.
Anne, who remains the chair of the charity volunteer group, said: “When we setup the garden committee, we wanted to do all we could make the lives of patients and their families that little bit easier. Through the work of our volunteers and with the support of local businesses, I really think we have been able to achieve that.
“With the way that palliative care has evolved in recent years, our committee was approached about opening the garden up and making it available to all of those visiting the hospital.
“As a committee, we were happy to support this and enable such an outdoor space, surrounded by trees, shrubs and flowers, to benefit the health and wellbeing of many more staff, patients, families and visitors."
The Fife Health and Social care Partnership’s Head of Community Care Services, Lynne Garvey, said:
“The Queen Margaret Haven Garden Group do incredible work, with the volunteers committing great time, effort and expertise to provide such a valuable resource for patients and carers.
“While the way that palliative care is provided in Fife has changed in recent years, there continues to be very many patients cared for at Queen Margaret Hospital in the last days, weeks and months of their lives. We were especially keen that the wonderful garden could continue to be enjoyed by patients with palliative care needs and their families, and we are delighted to see this fantastic space now also made available to all of those visiting Queen Margaret Hospital.
“We would like to give our thanks to the group for their continued support, and to the many individuals and businesses who have supported the group to help create and maintain such a fantastic outdoor space for patients and their relatives.”
You can follow the work of the Queen Margaret Haven Garden Group on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/TheHavenatQueenMargaretHospital
