Halton Healthcare has become the first hospital system in Canada to partner with the PaRx program, an initiative that prescribes nature as medicine.
“It’s offering our communities sustainable and accessible ways to spend more time outdoors…. We know that incorporating these preventative lifestyle measures is an excellent step towards setting up healthier communities and providing holistic care,” hospitalist and physician Dr. Nivedita Patel said.
PaRx is an initiative of the BC Parks Foundation and bills itself as “Canada’s national, evidence-based nature prescription program” on its website.
“This is a program that we have developed with physicians all across Canada, and it’s endorsed by the Canadian Medical Association,” said Andrew Day, CEO of the BC Parks Foundation. “It identifies nature as a part of people’s health-care plans, and it enables health-care professionals, including your local GP, to add a prescription for nature as part of your health and well-being.”
Day pointed to the connection between human health and nature as a driving force of the program.
“We started to look into all of the medical studies and evidence … and we found that there was a really compelling scientific argument for the way that nature can benefit people’s health and then that led to a series of discussions with professionals in the medical field and a general agreement that this was actually a very cost-effective and excellent way of improving Canadians’ health.”
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The program has grown exponentially since its inception and PaRx is now available in every province in the country.
Health-care providers who register with PaRx receive a nature prescription file customized with a unique provider code and instructions on how to issue and log nature prescriptions.
The goal of the program is to encourage patients to incorporate outdoor experiences into their daily routines.
Tom Gannon Hamilton, an author and musician in Toronto, has made good use of his nature prescription.
After an accident in November 2023, Gannon Hamilton spent time in hospital and then rehab but he credited his time in nature with really helping his recovery.
“I ended up at the Toronto Rehab Institute and there I spent 10 days, came in a wheelchair, left on one crutch. They were amazing while I was there. They seemed to be impressed with my progress, and I was offered a Parks Canada Discovery Pass, which I had no idea existed,” he recalled.
Gannon Hamilton received the pass in the mail and began exploring.
“That facilitated really rapid recovery for me and that’s what gets us then to this issue of why we need the parks, why we need conservation areas, green spaces, and why we need access to it, particularly for people who have been traumatized because it is really part of the recovery process,” he said.
There are now more than 16,000 health-care professionals registered to prescribe time in nature across Canada.
“There’s been over one million prescriptions that have been provided so that means approximately a million Canadians are now having time in nature as part of their health-care plans,” Day said.
In Ontario’s Halton Region, Patel pointed out there are many places patients can go to explore nature and feel the benefits of the program.
“We’re blessed to be surrounded by beautiful conservation areas where people can actually go in and immerse themselves in nature,” she said.
Patel noted that cost can often be a barrier but she hopes the partnership between Halton Healthcare, PaRx practice and Conservation Halton will remove that obstacle for patients.
“By prescribing nature, we’re taking an innovative proactive approach to health care.”
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Halton Healthcare begins writing prescriptions for nature for patients
