The Patagonia headquarters of the San Sebastián University presented a plan that will allow doctors to “prescribe” visits to national parks or contact with nature for their patients.
The plan is named after “You Need South” and was promoted by the study house in conjunction with the Lakes and Volcanoes Scenic Route.
It is worth mentioning that the program will begin to be applied in the USS University Health Center. The objective is improve the physical and mental condition of patientsin addition to promote visits to parks and natural areas.
Along these same lines, doctors in the area of psychiatry will be able to prescribe nature as complementary medicine for the treatment of different pathologies, according to the Diario de Puerto Montt.
“This is a significant program for the University because it generates a synergy not only between the institutions that promote this initiative today, but also between our own careers, such as Medicine, so that our future doctors can work with communities and have a space for well-being in different natural environments of our territory,” said Sergio Hermosilla, manager of the Lagos and Volcanoes Scenic Route.
Unpublished program in our country
Dr. Claudio Faúndez, psychiatrist and head of the Department of Mental Health and Psychiatry at the USS School of Medicine, pointed out that this is an “excellent opportunity to be able to reveal the importance of being in contact with nature for people’s physical and mental health”.
On the other hand, he mentioned that there is “international evidencebut this issue has not yet been established as a measure in the country, and we believe that it is a very valuable opportunity to demonstrate that it has a real impact on people’s health and quality of life.”
This type of treatment is already implemented and tested in different parts of the world and as in Canada, Japan and New Zealandso in our country, Montt port is a pioneer in putting nature prescription into practice as a health treatment for certain pathologies.
