to think there should be healthy, appetising food for my friend in hospital?

[deaconblue]

She's in hospital for at least 5 days after having a masectomy, feels like crap obviously and the food is so unappealing. Hardly any fresh fruit or veg (lots of tinned fruit, sponge puddings and those diced carrot and swede bits from the freezer). Her parents have been meeting her at the ward door at lunchtime (visiting starts later than lunch so they come back then, bless them) with decent meals. I don't understand why the rules which apply to schools can't also be applied to hospitals.

My 10mth DS was hospitalised a few weeks ago, I was horrified at the dreadful options for babies.

Only jarred food available and that was egg custard, rice pudding, turkey casserole or a very stinky cheese pasta a cauliflower tin.

We are pescetarian and I have never fed him from a jar, not surprisingly he wouldn't eat aanything

When I was having DS, I discovered that as a coeliac, I was supposed to present myself to the ward kitchen an hour before every meal and tell them that I needed a gluten free meal, else they wouldn't get me anything. As DS was in SCBU, fortunatly I could microwave M&S meals that DH brought me in.

My other recent hospital visits for ERPCs caused problems as I had to eat before I could be discharged. But they didn't have anything for me to eat. DH had to go to the vending machine to find something safe

that really is terrible. although tbh if there was finger food he probably wouldn't have been much better off.

man i love the nhs, i love the staff, i love the fact that they care so much. how can they be stuffing this bit up so badly?

I stayed in hospital for quite a while in my teens, and had to have a high protein diet, and the food then was quite good. Then some years later, 1989, I stayed after I had my eldest ds, and the food was not only awful, there was often nothing left for me, after battling to breastfeed ds, even though I had filled in a menu card.
Years later, c 2003, I had a c-section with ds2 and the food was excellent, there were even 3 different menus to choose from. Ds3 and ds4 were both born in the same hospital, no menu cards, and food was handed out on a first come,first served basis and the most nutritious + tasty thing available was cheese and crackers. I took my own food, dh broght me fruit and an evening meal.
Hospital food is awful.

Ouch @ your last experience deeeja.

I only have experience of childrens hosp in central london, grown up hosp in central london and local place where I had my CS last year.

All of those had menu cards that you filled in in the morning/on the previous day.

If there are places with no choice then that is very poor. Not least as when you're in for a long time, the meals are what you look forward to. Mulling over what to have is one of the best bits of the day. I imagine for people in long term and/or elderly that really knackers whatever quality of life they could be having IYSWIM - for me it was the one thing where you had a choice, and it was up to you, not someone else. That is a very important thing when you're in an institution for a period of time.

Maybe it sounds strange but hospital food is one of the subjects most likely to make me cry.

DD had cancer. Cancer treatment fucks up your taste buds. You dont want to eat.
You need to eat to cope with chemo. The thinner you are the harder it is and the more likely you are to get horrible side affects.
She was only 12-14. She wanted nice food to eat or she just couldnt face eating. I tried to explain how important it was to keep her strength up but she was only a kid.

My DD became anorexic when she was on treatment. A combination of the lack of control she had over her life, feeling so ill and the shitty crap and sometimes bloody dangerous food that was offered to her.

She was in hospital a LOT. One of the hosptials was not near many shops. It was v.hard for me to get out and find her alternatives because it was hard to leave her. OH was with the other kids so v.difficult for him to get up to us.

The other hospital was in the West End so this was a bit better. But still hard to get out and takeaway food is hardly the healthy option is it?

The hosptial food was dreadful. It was often cold. 'We can reheat it love' No you fucking cant my daughter has no immune system you tit. Mangled fish fingers, reheated chips, cold burgers crap crap crap.

No pasta, no salads, no tempting side dishes. NO FOOD OUT OF HOURS! If you missed a meal time because you were stupidly asleep, in theatre, being sick, getting treatment that was it. You could get a snack box which was actually better than the hot meals but still a sandwich and a packet of crisps and an apple.

I spent thousands on trying to feed my DD and myself. 6 meals a day in central London adds up over two years.

I still beat myself up because I couldnt get her to eat more. It haunts me.

So no YANBU and I wish your friend all the best for her recovery.

Oh chegirl I am so sorry.

As a mother, to not be able to provide the most simple thing, sustinence, must have been appallingly hard to cope with.

Your post has made me well up. Not all childrens hospitals are like that, or even all hospitals.

I am still angry that when they closed the hospital I was in as a girl they closed 4 other hospitals to make one of these "super" ones. New hospital was horrible and impersonal. IMO children with difficult/complicated/life threatening illnesses etc deserve to be treated in hospitals especially for them. Great ormond street should not be the only one. There used to be lots, and I will never forget mine.

I am so sorry.

oh chegirl... you poor woman, your poor family. you've just had dd's anniversary fairly recently haven't you? i hope you made a nice day out of it somehow, in memory.

Thanks LTOS.

DD was in the old Middlesex before it closed. It was lovely but crumbling. The oncology chidren were treated as though they were very special (they were). Then we moved to the new UCLH and it was v.different. Thank goodness for the Teenage Cancer Trust unit.

I know the hospital have put a new hot food vending machine on the ward but only because one of the surviviours campaigned and fundraised for it!

Our local was the worst though. They simply did not take into account the affects of long term illness on children's eating habits.

It was bad enough for the kids/parents who were in for one short stay but for those of us who were there frequently and for long stays, it was bloody depressing.

It's so hard really. My hospital was a dedicated childrens hospital, it had murals all over the inside done by children who had been treated there, there were toys, the staff were used to dealing with children and teenagers (I was in and out from about 11 to 14). It felt like a special place.

The new hospital had all the mod cons but no soul.

I really think that the needs are so different for children in hospital, the emotional and psychological side of things is vital if they aren't to have problems later in life due to being taken out of school, away from parents, having to manage pain etc. They need a place where they can still be children, even while they're weak and in wheelchairs and feeling sick and so on.

The more I think about this the more I realise how important it is to me - I had a good experience overall - when I had to go to the grown-up hospital I didn't like it but I was about 14 by then...

As your experience shows, physical treatment is not the be all and end all. Enviroment has a huge impact on recovery, and where recovery is not likely then environment is even more paramount.

Sorry AitchTwo! I didnt see your post there.

Thank you, yes we had DD's anniversary at the end of April.

How lovely that you remembered that

she sounds like a lovely young woman, every time you describe her, chegirl.

and from your photos, of course, i can see she was a fox.

She was.

I still dont know how I managed to produce her

omg this is such a current post for us. My DH has just been discharged from Hospital after suffering a heart attack During the 8 days he was there, he missed loads of meals due to having the audacity to be having tests or sleeping. When he filled out menu cards he rarely got what he chose.

Most baffling of all for a CARDIAC ward, was the lack of healthy, low fat or low cholesterol food available. He would annoy the woman who gave out breakfast every morning by refusing the butter - and they never had flora. Every meal came with salt satchets, he was given cake with every cup of coffee they would go deaf when he said "no thanks" and refuse to take it away spooted dick or jam roly poly and custard was a regular on the pudding menu.
He once asked the catering woman what the healthy option was when yet again his requested meal did not arrive - Tuna mayonaise she really didnt get why he said no thanks...

Yet everyday he had visits from dieticians, cardiac rehab people and leaflets given him on healthy eating, lifestyle changes etc.

Oh and I had to bring in tupperware boxes of salad,fruit, chicken etc

he got so fed up about the hypocrisy of the situation, he has kept a log of what he was offered and is going to use some of his recovery time at home to write to the hospital.

Yet every

funding, pure and simple. That's why. It is a total disgrace however, as ill people need proper nutrition more than ever in order to help them get back to health.

so no, YANBU.

YANBU, OP. A lot of it is down to the company holding the franchise for your particular hospital. I had my 3 DDs at the same hospital. With DDs 1 and 2, the food was appalling. You got a sandwich and a yoghurt at 5pm and that was it till breakfast the next day. Grand when you're trying to establish bfeeding and regain your strength. The hot food they served up was vile.

I also had my appendix out when I was 31 weeks pg with DD2. The crap they served up to me was outrageous - I remember DH begging me to eat something off the tray the day after I had my surgery. He and my mum started bringing in food parcels.

I had DD3 in the same hospital 2 years after DD2. The franchisee had changed, and the change in the food was astonishing. You could eat what they were offering and sometimes it was actually nice. There was a small kitchen sticked with yoghurts, fruit and bread, toasters and a kettle. It was amazing. And I'm betting they were doing that for roughly the same price as the previous company....

wishing your dh a speedy recovery, dobby.

Oh chegirl I am so sorry.

When i was in hospital for a month after getting run over (then a fair few few day admissions after) the food was great

the nighttime hot chocolate was is officially the nicest hot chocolate i have ever had ever in my whole life.
in fact i dodnt mind being admitted again and again; just for the night time hot chocolate!

i guess it depends what hospital you are in

i bet if the management were obliged to eat the same lunch as the patients something would be done...

I made the mistake of having babies at odd hours and as a result went without food for many, many hours.

Oh, and in the hospital where I DS, you were expected to get up and go and get your meal - even if you'd just had a csection.

I missed two meals there waiting for my epidural to wear off so I could get on my legs.

Luckily, I'd brought snacks and asked one of the other ladies to please hand me my bag, which had been placed out of my reach.

thanks AitchTwooh He is home now and has not stopped cooking since [since] adapting favourite meals to healthy versions I might add!

I can vividly remember staring down at a tiny, barely edible meal served up at our local hospital a while ago. I thought the same thing, but 20 months on from that moment, given the incalcuable amount of money her care has cost the NHS, I feel differently. All the tests and equipment and salaries of the specialists who operated them, three major operations - Each opreration involving around 5 days in hospital. 24-hour care for the 1st few days after surgery. The surgerys required consultant level surgeons & anethatists, recovery staff. In between she had lots of treatments too, numerous appointments, checks, medicines. Her stoma bags alone cost over £5 each. She would go through several a day some days and that doesn't count all the other consumable items that we used for the 4 months she had a stoma. All of these products were delivered to my door, in sensitively designed packaging, totally free of charge.
The NHS seems to me, at our hospital at least,caotic, over-stretched, held together by hard working, talented, dedicated people who work incredibly long hours. Until there is more money and better management of that money, there are so many more things that it has go on. Now if you could get better food with the same money, that would be different...