To have my Sunday lunch at the hospital canteen?

[Vacmat]

I don't work there, am not sick and wasn't visiting, but a friend works there and said they did a decent roast for £6.50. We'd had a busy morning and by late afternoon still needed lunch. Remembered conversation with friend and decided to try it.

It was fine. Nothing gourmet, but on a par with most chain pub roast lunches.

Is it odd to go to the hospital just for a cheap lunch?

I wouldn't go to the hospital for lunch but part of that is because the parking charges are horrendous. Going to a pub at least the parking will be free.

And I was going to say it lacks some atmosphere but then again the last time we went out for a Sunday pub lunch (about a month back) the manager came over to our table with our drinks and started a conversation about "all those vile illegal immigrants that are ruining the UK". Based on nothing we'd said at all, in fact I think all we'd said was "thanks for bringing us our drinks" or similar. Talk about an atmosphere killer.

It is odd but why not, I suppose?

The hospital my mum used to work at did incredible chips 🤣

Not that odd. Ive just found our local care home has a bistro which is also open to the community although not widely advertised. Full English breakfast and coffee for £4.20. I went for the first time yesterday. Will I go back. Most definitely

I think that’s fair enough, I ate loads of meals in the hospital canteen when my son was in SCBU and really enjoyed them- there’s something comforting about old fashioned canteen food, like school dinners! It’s out of my way and parking is a fortune or I might do it myself

You are very naive if don’t think hospitals are full of germs.

I spent four months in hospital earlier this year and I can vouch for the fact that the roast isn’t all that bad, although after four months the menu does become somewhat monotonous.

There are several things to consider though both good and bad.

Firstly the food given to the patients is usually different to that in the canteen, so if you’re eating there you’re not likely taking food from them, plus patients in the hospital I was in usually order their meals in the morning so those would already have been accounted for anyway.

Secondly, parking charges would probably have been higher than the cost of the roast, so you won’t really have saved any money. Added to which you could be taking up space in the hospital car park for someone who might wanted to have visited a relative and they in turn would have to spend more time looking for parking. If you started a trend this could potentially cause issues.

Re illnesses, I would be less worried about what you might catch, than I would be about what people might catch from you..

people in hospital are already sick and so their resistance is lower. And if you’re the type who thinks of casually dropping into hospital for dinner then you’re likely the type who is fairly casual about your health.

The hospital I was in is highly specialised and there are numerous immune suppressed patients, It’s inevitable that those patients will at some point come into contact with infection, but going down to the canteen is a part of their re-introduction to the outside world, if numerous outsiders started going there it could start to be considered to not be the safest place for newly immune suppressed patients to start going, and they’re the ones who actually are there for a reason.

I can’t vouch for other hospitals, but I imagine they would have some similar issues.

The profit from the cafe at our local hospital goes straight back into the care we provide. It's open to all and you're very welcome to use it @Vacmat

The canteens aren’t actually full of sick patients. They're mostly made up of staff and visitors. If you’re that sick you’re unlikely to leave your ward to traipse to the canteen in your pj’s and dressing gown. You’d be more likely to catch something visiting someone in their ward. Most sicknesses that require you to be an inpatient probably aren’t contagious anyway and if they were that bad you needed hospitalisation, you’d probably be in an infectious diseases ward. I’ve used hospital canteens many times and never got ill.

The nurses and doctors use them, are you saying they’re all getting ill because of it?

"You’d be more likely to catch something visiting someone in their ward."

Yes, exactly, the canteen has staff and visitors who have been close to ill people, some of whom may have contagious illnesses.
I take your point about most people in hospitals not having contagious illnesses, but you're missing my point about eating next to hospital visitors.

Exactly
If there are people on this forum who can say with confidence that people aren't spreading illnesses in hospital canteens then I hope they will present themselves to volunteer for SAGE during the next pandemic because they obviously know more about epidemiology than the last lot of experts.

I think I'll stick with the apparently obvious (although not to some) logic that a hospital is a good place to spread disease.

Also of course the more people going into hospital who don't need to, the higher the risk of spreading illness from visitors to patients. A mild cold, early stage flu, or asymptomatic covid, for example, might not even registered to a visitor but could be lethal if it spreads to immunocompromised patients, such as newborns, patients undergoing cancer treatment, etc.
Bit selfish and a bit silly imo. Keep hospitals for those who need to be there.

My parents have lunch at Chelsea and Westminster hospital mist days then peruse the charity shops on the walk home. They could afford to cook or eat out but they love the food and the routine and seem very welcome.

I used to do this! Was not worth the effort cooking for just me and the local hospital was 10 min walk away.

YANBU - When my son was small I had to have regular blood tests for a while and we would make going for my blood test into a day out by timing it around a trip to the hospital canteen.

Google "MRSA", and the concepts of "HAI" and "nosocomial infection", for starters. Did you ever question why they banned visitors to hospital during Covid (which btw is still a thing).

For those who work in hospitals/canteens saying "how do you think we survive?" - well your presence increase the risk of the spread of disease but it's worth the increased risk because we need people to work in hospitals. The presence of visitors increases it further, but as a society we want people to visit their sick loved ones, but we recognise that more people = more disease risk, hence making people wash hands, telling people not to come if they feel unwell, and in extremis eg during a pandemic, stopping people visiting entirely.

That is a risk/benefit trade off for staff and visitors. When people who have absolutely no need to be in hospital decide to go in, the risk is there with no benefit!

I presume those saying they work in a hospital and think extra unnecessary footfall is a good are not not eg neonatologists, oncologists, virologists etc because I wouldn't expect them to be cheerful about the idea of people attending hospital completely unnecessarily.

It's odd (very odd, I think - I'd never go into a hospital unless I had to!) but maybe not unreasonable.

BTW one of the hospitals in the city where I lived also had a Costa and a M&S Food Hall inside of it.
Where I live now, the hospital has a Starbucks which is the closest one for people living in that area.

I agree with you. When I’ve been ill in hospital with infectious things (twice), I’ve been barriered. In other words, not allowed to leave my bay, even for the loo so I’d never have been allowed to wonder to the canteen.

Yep, inpatients don't tend to to go the canteen as they get food on the ward. And like you said, if you are truly contagious then you are stuck in your room anyway.

It might be different now, but I used to work in a hospital, and the food on the ward and the food in the canteen was from the same supplier. Mostly cooked from frozen stuff.

Patients do need visitors though. Hospital is boring/scary otherwise (I presume, never stayed overnight myself).

I associate hospital with sickness & death. I've never been to a nice one so no, eating somewhere that there's a morgue and an ICU doesn't appeal.

Cruise ships have morgues.

It’s really common to do this. Especially Sunday lunch. And fish and chip Fridays in my current place.

Do they really, well I never knew that!