Former landscape architect shapes patients’ wellbeing

LiseLLa Hutton is a retired landscape architect in her 60s. she lives in Glasgow and volunteers with Beatson Cancer Charity at Glasgow’s Gartnavel Hospital. LISELLA SAYS: I’ve volunteered with Beatson Cancer Charity for nearly eight years.

My late partner Hugh was a patient here and he received the best medical care he could have hoped for, although sadly he died within four months of diagnosis.

However, it was clear more could be done holistically to improve the way he was treated as a human being and out-patient. I’m not medically qualified but I wanted to volunteer to improve the journey of others and Friends of the Beatson offered an opportunity to do this.

At that time, the service was only available to in-patients but as time has gone on and the Friends became part of Beatson Cancer Charity, services offered have increasingly benefited out-patients also.

I volunteer morning and afternoon on Tuesdays. A typical session involves assisting in the Wellbeing Centre and taking round the tea trolley, which goes to out-patient clinics and round the day care wards. We have to be very careful about infection control as cancer patients often have compromised immune systems, so all our biscuits are packaged.

The variety of drinks recognises that when having treatment, cancer patients often find things don’t taste the same and we hope we can find something to tempt them.

Also using my qualifications as a landscape architect I assist with the development of the gardens as and when required.

I’m a firm believer that wonderful plants and well-kept gardens can raise the spirits of patients, their relatives and the staff alike. My involvement is in the planning and design of new spaces rather than the implementation, which is carried out by a dedicated, devoted team of gardening volunteers.

We have only upgraded a few gardens so far and there is so much more we could do given the finance and additional gardeners.

I’d encourage anyone to volunteer and the great thing about helping with gardening is that it’s particularly good if you’re not that keen on being in the hospital environment. Being a gardener is a very good way of still being involved and making a difference.