To ask why breatfeeding mother get free hospital food

[McHappyPants2012]

In work last week and was working on the children ward. Formula feed babies the mothers had to pay £1.50 for a meal yet breastfeeding mother was told ther is no charge.

Formula on children ward are only provided in an emergency so I don't think it's down to cost

No - I didn't. Because when they did come to our room they were mostly lovely and caring.

And I didn't want to be labelled as a moaning minnie when they saved DS's life.

i would have jumped at the offer of a meal for £1.50...many hospitals dont even offer food for a cost to parents

Fut, I am a budget holder for 4 wards.

I promise that the provision of some meals and snacks would not break the bank.

Its also about looking beyond the initial cost. Happier parents?=Probably less complaints, which are costly, time consuming and distressing for all involved.

If we give food to anyone other than patients, we face disciplinary. We also take inidivual orders from patients, its very rare we have anything left over let alone enough to offer to 20 parents.

Long stay parents do get concessions at the canteen though.
Which I am embarassed to say I wouldn't eat at if my life depended on it though. I will admit and have voiceiferously stated at work I feel the quality of food in the canteen and their opening hours (which they change as and when it suits) is shite.

Thats the sort of thing I am talking about, its madness that a nurse would face such action for offering food.

I assume that rule is in place to ensure patients get offered food before anyone else. Which obviously is correct. However, like a lot of things, rules get taken too far in the NHS - meaning that we never move forward and offer a service that fits the needs of our patients/relatives in the here and now.

I have been in hospital with DS2 and DS3 on numerous occasions although only a few nights at a time thankfully. BF mothers and pregnant mothers are given meals (not sure if there is an age limit). Siblings are given food if there are leftovers on the trolley (there usually is).

There is a kitchen with bread, margarine, jam, tea, coffee, milk and squash available for all parents on the children's wards and assessment unit. It also has a kettle, fridge, microwave and toaster. Some other parents are fed at someone's discretion (not sure who decides). There was an 18 year old single mum who had been in for days with her 6wo baby and had no visitors, her mum even refused to bring in some nappies and change of clothes when she ran out . She was being given meals but not sure about anyone else.

Beds for one parent are provided for all children in side rooms and bf mums on the main ward (again, not sure if there is an age limit). You only get one thin blanket and a rustly pillow though so I normally take my own duvet and pillow.

The childrens wards in hospitals IME depend on parents being there to look after their children. If parents are expected to feed, change, give medication and generally be there 24/7 then they should also be getting a bed to sleep on and cheap or free food. If not, there needs to be more nurses and children be properly looked after by staff while parents go home to eat and sleep. Of course the first option is more practical and probably cheaper too.

Original OP - yes BF mothers should be fed, ff children should also be fed.

This thread has highlighted to me how appallingly the parents of very ill children are treated. Surely as a parent of a sick child your basic needs should be met as a human right you should have somewhere to sleep and access to decent food/facilities. Even if the parent could pay cost price for meals it would be reduce their stress and make life easier at a time that is so difficult.

Mrsdevere you write very well on the subject and have made me think, so sorry for the way you were treated whilst caring for your beautiful dd.

Yep, its a simple.

Provide a small room with a microwave and kettle etc.

Have a daily delivery of ready meals/sarnies etc. Parents can be responsible for nipping in and heating up their meal. Ongoing supply of fruit, cereals, toast for when its the middle of the night.

Loony it's also highlighted to me just how ridiculous this all is.

These are simple things that can be implemented that would make the world of difference.

ye they have a parents room with bread and a toaster, tea, coffee so parents wont starve. be good if they did a discount at our hosp for long term cos it costs a bomb living in hosp

Meals at cost price would be a big help. (as would a permit to park but that's a different thread)

I am on an average income, DP works all the hours he can and we have another child at home and one on the way as well as DS1 with Cystic Fibrosis.

£12 for 24hrs parking x 14 = £168
roughly £5 for a "meal" in the cafe (usually a sandwich, apple, bottle of water)

so £15 daily x 14 = £210

So for looking after my child in hospital for 2 weeks (baring in mind it can be up to 4 weeks) is about £378 out of our income that we just cannot afford, the choices are either I don't eat (which has happened) and I live off of bites of DS's food. Or the family as a whole get into serious debt.

Paying £1.50 per meal would help dramatically, or having toast or fruit provided for us would be a godsend.

the OP about charging parents isnt a bad thing, more hospitals should offer this

titsalinabumsquash my son has cf lso so i know how u feel. we used to buy staff parking permits for parking until he got his blue badges. i also eat his left over food
Its just something u learn to live with after years of it

Midnight- yes would be lovely for the NHS to provide ready meals/sandwiches for parents.
BUT when wards dont have essential equipment to help nurses/doctors do their jobs/care for the kids how important is it then? In an ideal world there would be unlimited funds for this but the care of the patient is paramount to be honest, and people are quick enough to complain if patient care is poor.

With regards to parking charges, stepping hill in Stockport, has passes you can buy. For a 12 month maternity parking pass its £10 and I know they sell them for other long term conditions too. Whilst its my ideal it's a damn sight better than having to pay per hour.

We recently had to use two hospitals on Scotland, free parking! One even had parent and toddler spaces! It was so much easier than down here having to worry about paying for parking.

With regards to food is there any reason why local companies couldn't come in and sell stuff? I'm thinking like the sandwich vendors that come around offices. Again not ideal but at least their stuff is a damn sight tastier than the slop doled out in hospital.

When ds1 was 4 he was admitted and they fed me my tea and brews because we hasn't eaten since the morning.

Fut - don't be pee'ed off at the parents that are complaining.

Be pee'ed off with decision makers and the system that puts you and the relatives/parents in this position.

Some improvements might not cost that much, just forethought. For example, at the only hospital I have experience of, some twit has apparently decided it's procedure that food is locked away and inaccessible to staff between 6pm and 8am. Even on the postnatal ward, where actual patients (many of whom plan to breastfeed!) come in, absolutely ravenous, after being in labour for hours (and of course, you are asked not to eat during labour, even if you feel like it, in case of later complications).

Just about every HCP I've met was lovely, but the framework they had to work under hasn't always been.

As I said before, that experience of mine was minor, but it's a foreseeable issue. If that doesn't get dealt with, despite repeated complaints from the staff, then no wonder the needs of the really vulnerable, like ill children and their families never get considered.

I would be amazed if volunteers could not be found to do cheap sandwich rounds with a trolley on paed and other long stay wards. I'd do it, and I am pretty sure some of the lovely WRVS ladies who run the coffee shops at the local hospital would as well.

One thing though fut- I nursed too. And one thing that was hammered into us time and time again was the value of listening. There's a lot to be learned here from people who wouldn't have the time or energy to feed back if they were on the ward right now. Even if it's just the registering admin worker giving directions to the nearest cheap sarnie shop, or making it clear that the HCA could be asked to watch a child for eating purposes, that would be a step forwards.

But a nurse shouldn't be riling a woman whose daughter was lost for recounting her experiences. And if that feedback is enough to make you want to go work in tescos then I suggest you get an application form. PLENTY of people don't have relatives who can help- if it were my boys DH would be home caring for the others as we have no other family locally and 3 of our 4 have autism so can't go to anyone else. I have friends who are widows, whose family have died, whose spouses are themselves disabled or even one whose ex is on the sex offenders register now so can't come anywhere near them.

When we consider these facts we can build a service that takes account of real people and their variability- after all who needs a parent collapsing on a ward through lack of food? And obviously not every parent can leave the child- MrsDV gave the example of a child who pulls out tubes, my own ds4 would simply scream and headbang until my return. But if we meet feedback with aggression nothing changes.

MrsDeVere - I am the parent of a long-stay child, with repeated and multiple admissions.

I know why you are cross. But in the context of what else goes on the majority of the early posts on this thread were whining about some people getting free food on the basis of bf and others not. That is a small issue in the scale of things I need the NHS to be able to provide. This thread isn't all about nurses, but every post isn't all about you, either.

Or me.

And in terms of NHS provision, yes, it IS either or when resources are scant and under imminent danger of becoming scanter.

IME life on a ward is good when nurses are not completely over-stretched. When there are enough, when they have tome to deal with pain not just life and death situations, when they have tome to talk with parents and answer questions. On the wards I have been on I see nurses being completely over-stretched. That is what would improve life for my DC.

Really sorry fr everyone who has had shit times with a sick child in hospital, but I still think this campaign is tilting at windmills, not addressing the most pressing priorities and would use MN's time and energy unwisely. Unlike, for example the miscarriage campaign. Which I supported, never having had a mc.

Because a breastfeeding mother needs a certain amount of extra calories to feed a FF mother does not.

I'm not trying to be cutthroat just logic, plus hospital food is nasty.

I was in hospital with DS2 aged 9 weeks (a general hospital, on a children's ward), and was fed (fairly nice hospital meals, actually!). I just assumed they fed all parents TBH, not sure if it was related to bf? I was feeding him, though, and he was very sick so I couldn't leave his bedside.

He was in hospital again for a week aged 7 months (leading paeds hospital). I was still breastfeeding, and because he was sick and we weren't that far into weaning, he wasn't having anything other than breastmilk. I was not fed. Nothing beyond a jug of water about once a day. It was awful, the hospital canteen was miles away and I couldn't really leave him to go there. So I only got food when DH managed to get in (not that regularly as he was at home with DS1, who wasn't allowed to come in due to DS2 being in isolation). It was a bit of a nightmare, on top of the lack of sleep and general stress, I felt extra crap due to fluctuating blood sugar (e.g. I didn't get ANYTHING to eat from admission at 5pm until around lunchtime the next day).

Personally I think paeds wards should be doing more to make sure all parents staying with / unable to really leave very sick children are at least given basic nourishment - surely the odd banana and slice of toast wouldn't stretch NHS resources too far.

This is a great thread I think. And has moved away from the original "they get free food" thread and more to a group of people that spend varying amounts of time in hospital on a semi to very regular basis.

To echo "peachy" post, at the time I don't really think of complaining/suggesting/asking. I'm too busy caring for my child, and counting my lucky stars that we have the NHS and live in a "first world" country and that my child can be treated.

However, months down the line, when emotions are under control, there is no harm in discussing our experiences, and suggesting things that would make a parents life easier during their child's stay?

Maybe we should start a new thread?

It seems to vary by ward here. You don't get anything in the childrens' ward, but when I went in on several occasions for testing related to a DVT this year, I was offered food every time I was in the waiting area! Full lunch, sandwich, fruit, crisps, drink. More tea/coffee, etc. I am not complaining that they get that, but I do think it's a bit sad they don't have something similar (at least the tea and coffee!) for the poor parents who are unable to leave their child's bedside (have been in the same hospital for both an overnight stay for DS as well as the DVT clinic).

Even if they charged for the tea/coffee and snacks, it would be appreciated, I'm sure.