is under scrutiny again. This time it is a lead letter in this morning's paper.
It's timely. An elderly friend has just come out of hospital. She spent five nights there. Nobody informed me she was there or I would have been in to visit - with food.
The Senior Cat spent three nights in the same hospital last year. We both had "the 'flu" at the time or I might have been more alert to the appalling state of the food service. He isn't one to complain. He thought the staff were lovely, caring and very kind to him. He thought the food was appalling.
This is the grand-new-state-of-the-art-very-expensive hospital that is supposed to be so good. Yes, the one I talked about without anywhere for the staff to sit down for two minutes with a cup of tea.
My elderly friend, definitely not one to complain at any time, told me, "I lost a bit of weight dear. I suppose they know what they are doing but the food wasn't very nice. I couldn't eat it."
Coming from her it had be one of the understatements of the year so far.
As my friend is also a little under weight at the best of times losing weight was hardly helpful.
"Is it that difficult for them to provide just a sandwich?" she asked me in a genuinely puzzled way, "I would have thought it was easier to do that than give you two hot meals a day."
I don't really know much about mass catering but I suspect that sandwiches may be more labour intensive. Machines can peel and chop vegetables, dump them in massive pots, stew any nutrition our of them, drain them and then place precise amounts on a plate.
"I think I might get some of that nice grain bread from the bakery," my friend said, "If they have any of those small loaves today. Then I can make a proper sandwich."
I hope it was a day on which the bakery makes the small loaves. The bread is, as commercial breads go, very good. It would never see the inside of a hospital.
I wonder how much food gets wasted in hospitals that have outside catering? Maybe it would be cheaper to provide sandwiches. Or is all this a ploy to get people to go home as fast as possible?
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3 comments:
I used to work occasionally in an NHS hospital in England. I was always told that the food was for the patients, not the staff. I was never ever tempted! Where else do you find jam role poly pudding with packet custard? Made 25 kms away, plated up, and transported, hours in advance of the meal times, in a sort of heated safe.
It must be soul-destroying work for dietitians and nutritionists who try to design nutritious tempting meals but are obviously greatly constrained by price and logistics.
In the old days, hospital wards had kitchens and staff were able to make a sandwich for the patients.
Thinking of the post about hospital design: My sister had her twins in a new, purpose-built maternity hospital, that had done away with lino in favour of carpet, en-suite rooms instead of wards, etc, and was a replacement for the previous purpose-built maternity hospital which was all of 18 years old. Unfortunately, the designers had not considered the possibility of multiple births, so my sister and her twins were in what was planned as a meeting room, and she had to use the communal facilities along the hall.
LMcC
My husband spent time in San Juan de Dios hospital in San Jose Costa Rica. A huge place...but it has its own kitchens and, on the whole, the food was super...a great contrast to the experience in France where the food was in general abysmal. He used to lose about a kilo a day when in hospital there...and no one noticed that with paralysed hands he coud not tear the foil tops from the food containers. Usually another patient helped him to reveal the horrors which lay within.
Most hospital food will make me sick due to special dietary needs. It takes an averae of 3-4 days for the hospital to organise the proper food for me that I can eat but then only if I make a fuss and if there is a dietician available and a doctor willing to make a referral!
I need to take my own food EVERY time otherwise I don't eat and the hospital staff take no notice. There was one poor man in a bed nearby who was from the country in a city hospital. All he wanted to do was go home where he could get a decent steak and yet the doctors would not release him until he put on weight - meanwhile he didn't eat and kept losing weight. I worried so much for him and sympathised with him too.
Hospital is the best place to get sicker because of the lack of rest, lack of nutritious food and the increased risk of infection. The poor food quality in hospitals is outrageous.
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