'Healing Garden' to be built at Royal Cornwall Hospital thanks to fundraising by Covid-19 survivor

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Work on a garden to help patients heal at Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro has begun thanks to fundraising by a Covid-19 survivor.

Robin Hanbury-Tenison, a Cornish explorer who suffered badly from the virus, raised over £130,000 to create the therapeutic garden.

The explorer had benefitted himself from a similar garden at Derriford Hospital, when he spent more than six weeks recovering from Covid-19.

Robin said: "With tubes coming out of everywhere they wheeled me into the garden and I remember the moment I felt the sun on my face, saw the flowers, opened my eyes and pressing on my tracheotomy tube said 'I’m going to live'.

Spending time in the garden at Derriford at Hospital helped saved Robin's life Credit: Derriford Hospital

"Everybody knows that fresh air and exercise makes you feel better but nobody has ever really understood it.

"They’re now beginning to examine it clinically and really understand the truth of the healing power of nature and I am living proof of that because I experienced it.

"I was about to die and I went out into a garden and I was made better.”

But the Cornish garden is set to be unique and will be the first therapeutic garden in the country to have medical gases directly piped into it so critically ill patients can use the space.

Kym Vigus, a Sister on the Critical Care Unit at Royal Cornwall Hospital, says she's over the moon that work is soon beginning on the garden.

She said: "It’s like the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s been three years of real hard graft especially with the pandemic.

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"We never expected to have to go through that, morale is low, staffing is low, it’s going to help us as well as our patients to be able to take that time out and do the stuff we normally do with our patients and that’s rehab them to a higher standard.

"So we’ve got a bridge so they can practice their walking, it’ll be a nice flat surface, the fact that we’ll have space for two whole beds, it’ll be a nice family space and people will be able to bring in their pets.”

The garden is located right below the Critical Care Unit and should be complete and ready for patients to use by the start of the summer.