By Cecile Mantovani and Denis Balibouse
Swiss doctors are expanding the range of prescriptions for patients with mental health conditions and chronic illnesses to include strolls in public gardens, art galleries and museums.
The city of Neuchatel, in western Switzerland, launched the pilot project with doctors last month to help struggling residents and to promote physical activity.
“For people who sometimes have difficulties with their mental health, it allows them for a moment to forget their worries, their pain, their illnesses to go and spend a joyful moment of discovery,” Patricia Lehmann, a Neuchatel doctor taking part in the programme, told Reuters.
“I’m convinced that when we take care of people’s emotions, we allow them somehow to perhaps find a path to healing.”
Five hundred prescriptions will be handed out for free visits to four sites, including three museums and the city’s botanical garden.
One of them went to a
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