As it stands, 90 per cent of cit­i­zens in Trinidad and To­ba­go eat less than the rec­om­mend­ed dai­ly serv­ing of fruits and veg­eta­bles which aid healthy lifestyles.

To serve bet­ter food to its pa­tients, the South-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) launched its Culi­nary Med­i­cine Food Park at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal Wednes­day.

It is a farm-to- hos­pi­tal bed ini­tia­tive that aims to im­prove food qual­i­ty from the Nu­tri­tion­al and Di­etet­ic De­part­ment. 

In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) Se­nior Health Spe­cial­ist Ian Ho-a-Shu and SWRHA CEO Dr Bri­an Ar­mour har­vest­ed the first crops from the hy­dro­pon­ic sys­tem. 

Over­seen by nu­tri­tion aids at the ground floor, the first crops were fine thyme, pak choi, let­tuce and chive, which were ready just five weeks af­ter set­ting up the sys­tem.

Ac­cord­ing to Pri­ma­ry Care Physi­cian II Dr San­di Arthur, the hos­pi­tal is the first in T&T and joins Can­cer Treat­ment Cen­tres of Amer­i­ca in Phoenix, Ari­zona and the Hawaii State Hos­pi­tal which have all im­proved their nu­tri­tious of­fer­ings with food from their on­site farms. San­di said the park would sup­ple­ment the pa­tient needs. The SWRHA aims to have fields set up at oth­er health fa­cil­i­ties, in­clud­ing Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal, New Hori­zons Cen­tre in Pi­paro and oth­er health cen­tres.

Ho-a-Shu said that be­cause peo­ple eat few­er veg­eta­bles and fruits than they should, it pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty for pa­tients who do not usu­al­ly fol­low a bal­anced di­et to be ex­posed to healthy food and prop­er nu­tri­tion while in ad­mit­tance.

“I must re­it­er­ate how pleased the IDB is to be part­ner­ing with the SWRHA on this ini­tia­tive and how it fits neat­ly with the ob­jec­tives of the IDB fund­ed US$51 mil­lion Health Ser­vices Pro­gramme. It sup­ports ac­tiv­i­ties for healthy lifestyles to ad­dress Non-Com­mu­ni­ca­ble Dis­eases, which sad­ly, ac­counts for more than 70 per cent of pre­ma­ture deaths in T&T,” Ho-a-Shu said.

Ar­mour stressed the im­por­tance of a bal­anced meal, say­ing that it is of­ten the dif­fer­ence be­tween life and death. He said that de­spite the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic chal­lenges, there is a need for cre­ativ­i­ty and in­no­va­tion in bal­anc­ing the SWRHA’s bud­get while spend­ing wise­ly on pa­tient care. It in­cludes pur­chas­ing goods for meals and bev­er­age.

Ar­mour said the food park is in align­ment with the SWRHA’s strate­gic plan for 2020-2023. He said that as an or­gan­i­sa­tion, it is fo­cused on im­prov­ing client ex­pe­ri­ence and health out­comes.

“The pri­ma­ry goal of this ini­tia­tive is to pro­mote sus­tain­able pro­duc­tion of fresh, safe and nu­tri­tious food while en­sur­ing and main­tain­ing a con­sis­tent sup­ply and di­ver­si­ty to our pa­tients,” Ar­mour said.