Should people in hospital supply thier own food.

[ICanSeeTheSun]

Another thread reminded me that when my Ff'd niece was in hospital my sister had to bring all her food in, as in her formula she was 5 months and not at that point had her first taste of solids.

Now based on this, where a patient is a baby and the hospital don't fund thier food should the NHS fund an adult to eat.

[MiscellaneousAssortment]

Oh expat I am familiar with your tragedy and it makes my heart ache for you :( I am so so sorry.

I lost my sister, and although it's not the same as losing a child, its a raw and brutal world I live in having her ripped away from me.

I wish the NHS would take more notice of patients nutrition though, as it's the building blocks of healing, although when everything's stretched, I guess it's one of the things that can be left to loved ones, but for a great many people, they have no one to help them, no loved ones to look after them.

[grocklebox]

I would have rather have paid for meals and actually got something edible for him, since he lost a quarter of his body weight in the first week. I have to pay for all of his food when not in hospital, I didn't feel the need to get free food when we weren't at home.
The revolting mess they served up, when they actually served it up, was a complete joke.

[bloodyteenagers]

A friend was in hospital ward for a long stay. Not everyone had visitors. My friend despite having a large family and a lot of friends did not have visitors everyday. It simply was not possible. How would they eat op? It isn't about if you have been abroad or not. It's about having common sense. You sister was lucky in that people around her was able to drop everything. Unfortunately not everyone can do this. Nor has everyone got friends/family around them to do this.

[expatinscotland]

'I have to pay for all of his food when not in hospital, I didn't feel the need to get free food when we weren't at home.'

And at home you have access to all your cooking supplies, to plenty of place to store food, to a cooker, day or night, whenever your child is hungry.

In hospital you have none of that. We had a kettle and a microwave in the parent kitchen, which I could not use for my child due to infection risk. Plenty of patients cannot be fed you have prepared due to infection control (food needs to be known to have reached a certain temperature).

The patient kitchen had a microwave and a kettle. You could not store certain foods in the fridge due to infection control. There was precious little freezer space or none, depending how many patients were in the unit. This made providing her with what she wanted to eat extremely difficult and most of the time, her food had to come off the trolley due to infection control.

I agree the food provided needs to be overhauled, my child lost weight she could not afford to lose and the whole thing was a little above a joke, but paying for your food or relying on others to bring it is far from the answer.

My child didn't get free chemo at home, either, that doesn't mean we should have to pay for it upfront.

[grocklebox]

Which is why I said paying for prepared meals would be a good option.

Don't me while cherrypicking quotes and ignoring others.

[LaurieFairyCake]

I think we should focus on hospital food being free and extremely nutritious instead of the slop they provide at 78p a day.

Nutrition provided properly aids recovery.

[ICanSeeTheSun]

Perhaps iabu

[expatinscotland]

I can post whatever I like in response to what I see or read as long as it is within guidelines, which it is.

What if you do not have the money to pay? When my child was diagnosed, we had to wait 3 months until we could claim benefits and use whatever money we had to pay rent and council tax and buy food for her siblings and keep the lights and heating on for them. There was literally NOTHING left. I lost loads of weight during that time living off Pot Noodle and tins of tuna.

Ridiculous and stupid to suggest paying for it for a hundred different reasons like this. It's not a restaurant.

[expatinscotland]

'I think we should focus on hospital food being free and extremely nutritious instead of the slop they provide at 78p a day.'


Exactly, Laurie.

[grocklebox]

How is it ridiculous and stupid? The food is TERRIBLE. Not good for anyone, least of all patients in a hospital. Of course it makes perfect sense for people who can afford to pay for it to pay for it, then it might be EDIBLE. The people who can't afford could then be subsidised. Then everyone could have food they could actually eat.
If you can't see the logic in that, I despair. Lets just leave everyone eating the pig swill then, because thats working SO well.

[grocklebox]

Free and extremely nutritious? With what, magic beans? Fucks sake, grasp the basics.

[Aeroflotgirl]

Yabvvu of course not!

[KatieKaye]

oh, great idea to get the relatives to do the patients laundry too....

My Dad was doubly incontintent during one of his (long) hospital admissions. I can just see my elderly mother managing home (over an hour on two different buses) with his soiled bedding and then washing it, drying it (no tumble drier) and taking it back in the next day. Only to repeat the cycle.

There's a reason hospitals have their own (industrial) laundries.

Also, for many vulnerable patients there is a very real need to be able to monitor what they are managing to eat, how many calories they are getting etc. They need proper, nutritionally balanced meals. Not to mention the folk on special diets.

[x2boys]

I,m a nurse I have seen portion size reduce significantly over the past few years the meals are all plated up now the sizes wouldn't fill my seven and four year old let alone adults even in the staff restaurant they are penny pinching staff have a 25% discount but it used to be reasonable prices and tasty not any more consequently most people don't use the staff restaurant anymore .

[x2boys]

Actually Katie I work in mental health we have washi g machines and dryers for patient use when I worked in dementia care relatives were expected to do the washing as we didnt have access to washing machines and if relatives didn't do the washing who would.

[Itsjustmeagain]

Food is a major part of treatment so in no way should it rely on the goodwill of family members. Many people may bring wonderful, nutritious food regularly but many other would drop a bag of chips of once a day- thats just the way of the world.

I think I must be in the minority to have always found hospital food perfectly edible! Not world class cooking but not the horror on a plate that other people seem to have found they were served. The best meals were the really really simple soups and sandwiches and casseroles/cottage pies, when they try and get all fancy its tends to go downhill!

my mum spent a lot of time (months at some points) in hospital as a child as she was diabetic and was very unwell on and off (would have been in the 60s) and she was fed steamed fish and veg every single night for months on end as it was the "diabetic food" they had apparently so it really could be worse!

[expatinscotland]

'The people who can't afford could then be subsidised. Then everyone could have food they could actually eat. '

Because that's just what is needed, more bureaucracy when you need to prove you cannot afford it.

[expatinscotland]

And a two-tiered system. Those who are subsidised will have been done so with less than paying customers. Let me guess who will get better quality food . . .

[wadingthroughtreacleuphill]

Not everyone gets paid sick leave.

To be honest, the last thing I wanted in hospital was food, I felt so ill. My dad did bring me some lemon squash though as I was really bored of water.

[expatinscotland]

The artificial sweeteners, wading. Let's give kids with cancer the known neurotoxin that is aspartame! Great idea.

DD1's tastebuds were heightened about a fortnight to three weeks after each round of chemo, all of which was in patient and then she would go into strict iso for weeks until her counts came up.

She wanted flavours. Sweeteners made her sick, though.

[wadingthroughtreacleuphill]

I'm not completely sure if you misunderstood my post there, expat, but I wasn't saying that we should give squash to anyone and certainly not children with cancer. I was just thinking out loud I suppose, to my time in hospital and that's the only item of food/drink taken in from "outside".

My DP is self employed and my parents are now both dead, so I'd better stay healthy if the OP's plan pays off, otherwise I'd starve!

I'm very sorry to hear about your daughter

[KatieKaye]

xboys this was when my dad was sectioned under the mental health act with paranoid delusions. In a very large, modern university hospital. The ERI in fact.

Mum was in her late 70s. No way could she have managed to do all that washing every day, far the less the bus journey home with soiled clothes. There is something very wrong about even considering this is any sort of option. She just refused and magically things were taken to the laundry after all,

[Fram]

What if you're in a coma? Have no family? Have dementia and cannot cook safely?
How could this work?

I think FF is something that patients (well, their parents realy!) should pay for. If your income is so low that you cannot afford it, then you're given milk tokens to purchase it, so effectively giving out formula for free in hospitals is the state paying twice for it.