BOGOTA – For the past seven years, Lionel Cifuentes has been coming to Bogota’s El Tunal Hospital three times a week to get treatment for his dysfunctional kidneys.
Now he has another reason to visit a place that has become so familiar to him it feels like a second home. A small garden on the hospital’s grounds offers him a respite.
On Monday, Cifuentes smiled as he watered plants and pulled up lettuces. He looked slightly tired as he raked the soil but said he was happy to try his hand at gardening. “This makes me feel important.
And it helps me to focus on something other than my disease,” said the 63-year-old dialysis patient. “It takes me back to the days when I felt like a useful person.” Hospitals around the world have been using.