Garden provides poison prevention classroom
Plants aren’t always wanted
There are many obvious ways to educate health care consumers, including patient resource centers, health fairs, community outreach classes, and written handouts distributed at points of care. Then there are the not-so-obvious ways to provide lessons. Kaiser Permanente found a golden opportunity for education in the landscaped areas around its medical facilities. It uses shrubs and trees commonly found in local gardens to teach poison prevention education.
"Kaiser Permanente’s philosophy is to prevent illness or injury whenever possible, so an outdoor garden is considered a way to provide education to prevent the poisoning in the first place, and secondly to improve people’s response when there is an accidental ingestion," says Jim Gersbach, media and community relations specialist and education program coordinator for the Poison Prevention Gardens at Kaiser Permanente in Portland, OR.
The plants at the three poison-prevention gardens located at Kaiser Permanente Medical facilities in the Pacific Northwest have plaques that identify them with their botanical Latin name and common English name. Each plaque is numbered as well to correspond with a self-guided walking tour pamphlet. The pamphlet describes the plant, what part is toxic (leaves, berries, bark, root, nuts, seeds), and symptoms of poisoning. For example, people would read that elderberries should not be eaten if they aren’t ripe.
"Plants are selected based on the different things that they teach," says Gersbach. At the garden at Salmon Creek Medical Office in Vancouver, WA, across the Oregon border, plants are arranged to provide five lessons:
• Education on herbal and natural products.
Due to increased consumer interest in complementary and alternative medicines, examples of plants used in popular herbal medicines are growing in the garden. They were planted to help people understand that herbs are not necessarily harmless especially when taken with other medications or consumed in high quantities.
• Common plants that can poison humans and animals.
Many common garden plants that have caused poisonings, especially those with attractive, bright berries are in the poison prevention gardens to help people learn their names and identify them. These include hollies, spindle trees, and boxwood. Often, people trim a boxwood hedge and throw the clippings into a horse pasture which results in livestock poisoning, says Gersbach.
• Plants with toxic sap.
Gardening as a hobby in the Pacific Northwest has exploded, yet many gardeners are not aware that the sap from certain plants or the oil from their leaves can irritate the skin much like poison oak or poison ivy. "The lesson we teach is that people should garden with gloves and long sleeves if they are raking leaves or handling plants. They should also wash their hands and equipment and launder their clothes. It’s a cautionary message for gardeners," says Gersbach.
• Plants that cause mechanical injury.
Plants with spines, barbs, and thorns can cause injuries to gardeners by introducing fungal organisms with the dirt. When this happens, the scratch is more likely to become infected. Therefore, the garden provides education on how to treat mechanical injuries.
• Plants that can be hazardous with long-term use.
Some plants are not harmful if used in small quantities infrequently; however, if their use is prolonged, they can have a carcinogenic effect. For example, it was found that the main ingredient in sassafras, often used to make tea, increased tumors in rodents with prolonged use, says Gersbach.
Making education convenient
The pamphlets for the self-guided tours can be picked up from a dispenser at the garden site or at the lobby desk of each medical center. They are printed in English, Russian, Spanish, Vietnamese, Mandarin Chinese, and Korean. The languages selected are the most frequently requested translator service for the medical offices. "Translated pamphlets are useful for recent immigrants who don’t speak English," says Gersbach.
The first poison prevention garden Kaiser Permanente implemented was in Southern California, where immigration is high, and the climate supports the growth of a great variety of plants. Immigrants and other residents did not know the names of the plants growing in their yards, so when they called poison control, they couldn’t identify what was ingested. "It does no good to give out the poison control number if people don’t know the names of the plants," explains Gersbach.
To further enhance the teaching at the Salmon Creek Medical Office, Kaiser Permanente partnered with the Washington State University Extension in Vancouver and their master gardeners give guided tours of the poison prevention garden the second Saturday of each month at 11 a.m. during the summer.
A pharmacist at Kaiser, who is an expert on plant poisoning, trains the master gardeners who volunteer as docents. The pharmacist gives them a tour of the garden during training and a notebook with information on each section that provides the lessons. Groups of four or more also can schedule a tour with the master gardeners.
Gersbach developed a slide show presentation that he makes available to groups who cannot tour the garden or are looking for a speaker.
To get the word out, press releases are sent to local media in the spring when plants start to bloom, and during poison prevention week when the garden often receives coverage. "The biggest benefit in having the gardens is they give us a reason to talk to the media about plant poison. The gardens get their attention so they write articles on the topics," says Gersbach.
Source
For more information on designing a poison prevention garden, contact: Jim Gersbach, Media and Community Relations Specialist, Kaiser Permanente, 500 N.E. Multnomah St. Suite 100, Portland, OR 97232. Telephone: (503) 813-4827. E-mail: [email protected].
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