Del Salvador Hospital, Valparaíso
The Hospital del Salvador in Valparaíso was founded in 1860 as part of the former San Juan de Dios Hospital. It was an ideal place to care for victims of smallpox and tuberculosis due to its isolated location. For a few years, it also served as a hospital for the wounded from the War of the Pacific (1879). Following the discovery of antibiotics and the control of tuberculosis in the 20th century, the number of patients decreased significantly. It was then converted into a psychiatric hospital.
In 1970, the sustained increase in the psychiatric population prompted authorities to focus and channel psychiatric efforts in a single location; thus, the Hospital del Salvador in Valparaíso definitively became the headquarters for all psychiatric resources in that region.
Currently, this hospital—considered a historical and cultural heritage site in Playa Ancha—has short- and medium-stay outpatient units for children, adolescents, and adults who require specialized psychiatric support.
The hospital has more than 290 staff members and serves more than six thousand people each year, more than a thousand of whom are children and young people.
This hospital complex has a campus-style layout and features a series of green areas with great potential to be restored and transformed into healing gardens to support psychiatric rehabilitation therapies and create meeting spaces for the hospital community. The Cosmos Foundation developed a master plan for the hospital’s green areas that takes advantage of the sea-facing spaces, spaces that showcase the hospital’s heritage architecture, and spaces of significant landscape value. Each of these areas is configured according to its spatial purpose and the clinical needs of each psychiatric unit. In addition, the first healing garden was built in the child and adolescent unit, where patients have a short or medium-term stay.
Ombú Therapeutic Garden – Children and Adolescent Unit
On June 22, 2018, we inaugurated the Therapeutic Garden at the Hospital del Salvador in Valparaíso. This new space for therapy and relaxation in nature was developed by the Cosmos Foundation in collaboration with Arbolaria Paisajismo and funded through the Ministry of Social Development’s (MDS) “Chile de Todas y Todos” competitive fund.
The Garden is located within the hospital’s short-stay Child and Adolescent Unit, where children and adolescents up to 15 years old with various psychiatric diagnoses live together. Until this project was developed, the children did not have an appropriate space for therapeutic or recreational activities, so they spent most of their time inside the unit, located on the second floor.
This Therapeutic Garden was designed considering the specific needs of the children and young people who attend and stay at this unit. Based on a physical, clinical, and social diagnosis, the unit’s needs were identified, and the goal was to create a friendly and welcoming space for patients and their families; a therapeutic space for group and individual activities with elements that enhance gross motor skills and outdoor play; and a space for connecting with nature that encourages relaxation with sensory elements such as wind and aromas, as well as a space to sit and contemplate the sea and the Torpederas neighborhood.