Poinciana Rehabilitation Centre is looking for a landscaper to transform its 15 acres of land into a therapeutic environment for residents.
A tender for landscaping services has been issued by Poinciana on the government procurement hub Bonfire, with applications due by 20 Feb.
The project description asks for a supplier “To provide landscaping services at Poinciana Rehabilitation Centre that will create and maintain a safe, aesthetically pleasing and therapeutic outdoor environment that contributes to the well-being and recovery of residents, while also enhancing the facility’s overall image and value.”
Therapeutic care
Poinciana opened in East End in 2024 so that people with serious and persistent mental illness could be cared for holistically in a safe and secure environment reflecting a therapeutic approach to care.
Dr. Marc Lockhart, Poinciana’s consultant psychiatrist, programme manager and chairman of Poinciana Mental Health Advisory Council, said that there were three major aspects of the overall therapeutic component at Poinciana, of which the outward environment was one crucial part.
“One component is the design of the facility itself and one is the actual programme of therapy and psychosocial rehabilitation activities, which we are developing all the time,” he said.
Last year the facility won an international award for best mental health design, which Lockhart said “was a very positive reaction to all the efforts that all the stakeholders put in designing this project.”
The third component, he said, was to make sure that the outward environment was harnessing the “healing power of nature to provide mental health and physical health benefits”, with decades of research showing the importance of connecting with nature and being surrounded with green plants and natural light as much as possible.
“The use of the natural environment for physical activity reduces the risk of poor mental health, so it’s crucial in many different ways,” he said. “Sitting in green spaces means you don’t have the noise pollution that we have in the big cities [or] the air pollution and other things that affect our health. It facilitates the ability for us to use mindfulness and meditation and positive reflection as well as making it easier to move around, which enhances physical activity and movement.”
He hopes that the landscaping project will result in seating areas around the grounds where therapeutic activities could take place, with trees planted for shade.
At a later point, he hopes the facility will have a small agricultural garden where residents can cultivate vegetables to supply the kitchen, providing both food and therapy.
In the meantime, he is hoping that local trees such as mango trees will provide shade and fruit. “We have 15 acres of land so it’s not just one or two acres,” he said. “At the moment there are some grassy areas so it’s not barren, but we have quite a way to go before we can get it to what we want.”
Lockhart said he hoped that the tender would attract several interested parties for the work. “We’d love to have a good selection so that we can choose the best and really make the outward design join with the facility design.”
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Two questions, why was the landscaping not completed at the outset, and secondly are all the rooms now occupied?