Hospital food

[margrace]

Some hospitals have their own cafaterias, Royal Vic at Barrie is one, the food it pretty decent.

Other hospitals have it brought in frozen from, I am told somewhere in Ottawa. This stuff is inedible. I have now experienced it in two hospitals and I would not give it to my pigs.

Now our local hospital volunteers have raised money and bought the special freeze/heat unit that prepares this food.

I am told the following, once that system is in it cannot be changed, even under protests why? Who pursuades local volunteers to raise money for this and are they told anything about the food or the local jobs that are lost?

I have emailed Mr. Smitherman but from my experience he does not answer emails, some lackey does. But I also know the The honourable Mr. Clement answers his emails personally.

Does anyone know if this is the same as the 407 deal and the highway sign deal put in by the Conservatives, it has a built in penalty for cancelling, just wondering

[Guest trex]

Youwould think that a hospital would be the first place to demonstrate proper nutrition, since it has such a profound effect on health, but no! Even the cancer centres sell nothing but greasy soups and charred burgers and flies

only the cheapest quality too

I have written the nutrition departments several times. Never get an answer back. Up yours

[Moxie]

In our major hospital the water is undrinkable, in fact toxic to the ill and terminally ill. You can't drink it or bathe in it, sponge baths for everyone from an eight ounce bottle of water. Image how you'd smell after four weeks of in-house Cancer treatment. For nine years the water has been contaminated with Legionares Desease, but is this a priority? NOPE. The good news is millions have been spent to renovate the GG's residence. How's that for priorties.

[luvacuppajoe]

Youwould think that a hospital would be the first place to demonstrate proper nutrition, since it has such a profound effect on health,

You've got that right! I've eaten hospital food a couple of times in the past and never saw anything to complain about until I was in for 36 hours last year when I delivered my baby.

My breakfast (which I was greatly looking forward to after a long and energy-depleting night) consisted of a side of dry toast and two sausages. Where were my obligatory scrambled eggs? Surely the kitchen had missed my plate when the yellow gelatinous mess was dished out...but I said nothing and just sent my husband to Tim Hortons for a bacon and egg sandwich.

The next morning when my breakfast arrived I thought surely they would have my eggs this time, so imagine my surprise when I lifted the lid from my plate and found not toast and sausages but just toast.

That was my breakfast, a side of dry, unbuttered toast, a cup of coffee and some inedible pale fruity-looking substance.

Given that the government and hospital so adamantly encourage us new moms to breastfeed our wee ones (and rightly so) it doesn't seem out of line to expect a wholesome, square meal -- and given that breastfeeding mothers need a couple hundred extra calories above the norm, you can imagine how well a lonely side of toast went over.

Thank God for my husband and Tim Hortons. It's little wonder that patients regularly need friends and family to supplement their hospital diets with bags of takeout.

[margrace]

I had a fairly invasive operation in one hospital using this food. My first experience with hospitals. I went two days with no food and on the third I got an inedible mess. My doctor told me the second day that I could have a hamburg if I wanted it but nothing came. So I vertually lived on jelly and water for three days. It was in the winter in the middle of a severe snow storm and we lived several hundred kilometres away. It also was my first experience with how short of nursing staff they were but they did their best in a bad situation. My husband finally was able to get through and get me home where I got something to eat.

The second time I went in the other direction, in the middle of a severe storm, but having learned the first time my husband got a room nearby and brought me in food. I was here 5 days and got wonderful nursing but the food was still inedible.

I understand that in several areas they have tried to have the hospital cafeterias reopened, no luck, evidently they are mandated to stay with the slop. Who controls this, whose idea was this, why can't we be told.

A lot of people live in a bubble, they listen to the rhetoric of waiting lists. In my experience they need to pay more attention to who is running their local hospitals and just how much money is being wasted and paid to officials protecting their jobs. The first hospital I went to is now being investigated, at least it was, but there has been a news blackout.

Its time we recognized that private business and over paid executives are draining money out of our hospitals.

Edited November 6, 2007 by margrace

[M.Dancer]

This is why I am so looking forward to the Indo Canadian Hospital in Brampton.....mmmmm......butter chicken and papadums....

[guyser]

.....mmmmm......butter chicken and papadums....

Waitress...er Nurse , where is my side on Naan ?

[mikedavid00]

Some hospitals have their own cafaterias, Royal Vic at Barrie is one, the food it pretty decent.

Other hospitals have it brought in frozen from, I am told somewhere in Ottawa. This stuff is inedible. I have now experienced it in two hospitals and I would not give it to my pigs.

Now our local hospital volunteers have raised money and bought the special freeze/heat unit that prepares this food.

I am told the following, once that system is in it cannot be changed, even under protests why? Who pursuades local volunteers to raise money for this and are they told anything about the food or the local jobs that are lost?

I have emailed Mr. Smitherman but from my experience he does not answer emails, some lackey does. But I also know the The honourable Mr. Clement answers his emails personally.

Does anyone know if this is the same as the 407 deal and the highway sign deal put in by the Conservatives, it has a built in penalty for cancelling, just wondering

Wow what a sad, sad, email.

It's just so pathetically sad. It's reminicent of an old communist Russia.. i don't know.. it's just sad.

They wont allow it due to a self-hating mental illness that many Canadians suffer from. That's the real reason.

I can't believe i'm reading a post like this in 2007. It's just so sad.

To think.. our own hosptials are not there to serve us, but rather communist/political instututions.

[mikedavid00]

This is why I am so looking forward to the Indo Canadian Hospital in Brampton.....mmmmm......butter chicken and papadums....

It's like you guys have a sikness. An illness.

A mental illness.

[guyser]

To think.. our own hosptials are not there to serve us, but rather communist/political instututions.

When I was in the hospital my roommate was The Hammer and Sickle , and down the hall I could hear the nurse asking the Natural Resources Ministry to turn the head and cough.

Imso ronree..so ronree.....he says hi to !

Oh sheesh.

[guyser]

It's like you guys have a sikness. An illness.

If you mean an illness for good food, then you sir are correct.

Chanah , tofu, Naan , all good my friend all good.

[M.Dancer]

It's like you guys have a sikness. An illness.

A mental illness.

Maybe even a mental sikness......

[margrace]

AH you can always tell when one gets a little too close to the truth. Out come the big guns with their sarcasm and bullying. Heaven forbid that anyone question Mr. Harris's "Ontario is open for Business" Didn't I read on here that Mr. Harris now sits on at least 10 boards of big business. Do you have any idea how much mullah he is raking in each year.

So this food company, whoever it is must be in that collection of business's that are makeing money off the the sick of Ontario. Congradulations guys you have proved my point.

.

[M.Dancer]

AH you can always tell when one gets a little too close to the truth. Out come the big guns with their sarcasm and bullying. Heaven forbid that anyone question Mr. Harris's "Ontario is open for Business" Didn't I read on here that Mr. Harris now sits on at least 10 boards of big business. Do you have any idea how much mullah he is raking in each year.

So this food company, whoever it is must be in that collection of business's that are makeing money off the the sick of Ontario. Congradulations guys you have proved my point.

.

Not sure how to break this to you but hospital catering contracts are awarded by the hospital management, not the gov't. Got a problem with the poached chicken? Take it up with the hospital trustees.

Your swipe at Harris is irrelevant.

[fellowtraveller]

Maybe even a mental sikness......

More like a mental sikhness.

i promise to stop now.

Some local entrepreneurs put together a dandy business catering to hospital patients in Edmonton.

They had this wacky idea of providing tasty, fresh food to anybody who wanted it, dropped off at your bedside at mealtimes. Next meal, they would pick up the dishes and linens.

I saw two of their dinners, both were of a quality seen at home or at a good-to-very good restaurant. They cater to any diet, and prices were around $18 for dinner, $13 for lunch, delivered.

They lasted about 3 months before the hospital blocked entry on some premise or another.

[margrace]

More like a mental sikhness.

i promise to stop now.

Some local entrepreneurs put together a dandy business catering to hospital patients in Edmonton.

They had this wacky idea of providing tasty, fresh food to anybody who wanted it, dropped off at your bedside at mealtimes. Next meal, they would pick up the dishes and linens.

I saw two of their dinners, both were of a quality seen at home or at a good-to-very good restaurant. They cater to any diet, and prices were around $18 for dinner, $13 for lunch, delivered.

They lasted about 3 months before the hospital blocked entry on some premise or another.

that seems to be the problem, two of the hospitals I spoke of had excellent meals prepared in their own cafaterias, open for the public and supplied to the patients. Then it was stopped and the pig swill was brought in. Despite a massive protest in one area they were told it was impossible to change. What I want to know is why and who is behind this,

Edited November 7, 2007 by margrace

[margrace]

Not sure how to break this to you but hospital catering contracts are awarded by the hospital management, not the gov't. Got a problem with the poached chicken? Take it up with the hospital trustees.

Your swipe at Harris is irrelevant.

Of course they are awarded by the hospital management but who is behind the company that is now bringing it in and why is this being done. Who is benefitting? Why are these contracts such a secret?

Mr. Harris was a bully too but he chose one too many a fight and had to back out quick

[guyser]

Of course they are awarded by the hospital management but who is behind the company that is now bringing it in and why is this being done. Who is benefitting? Why are these contracts such a secret?

Mr. Harris was a bully too but he chose one too many a fight and had to back out quick

The benefits go the hospital. They save money. They also serve balanced meals that are good enough, but not enough that one would want to stay for the food.

Harris is so 2002, and sounds as ridiculous as those that keep bringing up Chretien on Fed issues.

[M.Dancer]

Why are these contracts such a secret?

Are you a paid union poster?

I'm sure there's alink somewhere supporting this wild assertion.

[margrace]

Are you a paid union poster?

I'm sure there's alink somewhere supporting this wild assertion.

No just an old gal who has experienced and heard from others how terrible this food is and how good it was from their own cafaterias. The only involvment I have with hospitals is my health and my work with Palliative care. It is the people who work with the dying who are finding out about this awful food. It's like the mantra "Blame Canada" only this time it appears to be "Blame the sick and dying and the Unions"

[fellowtraveller]

that seems to be the problem, two of the hospitals I spoke of had excellent meals prepared in their own cafaterias, open for the public and supplied to the patients. Then it was stopped and the pig swill was brought in. Despite a massive protest in one area they were told it was impossible to change. What I want to know is why and who is behind this,

You have it backwards.

The food that was brought in by private sector caterers was good, the food prepared by the hospital staff was utter garbage.

No doubt the hospital union was involved in getting the outside caterers shut down on some pretext.

[margrace]

You have it backwards.

The food that was brought in by private sector caterers was good, the food prepared by the hospital staff was utter garbage.

No doubt the hospital union was involved in getting the outside caterers shut down on some pretext.

Well since I volunteer in the hospital every week I think I should know. The food prepared in our hospital kitchen was a source of pride to the whole community. The fozen slop brought in from hundreds of miles away by a private company is inedible

[M.Dancer]

Well since I volunteer in the hospital every week I think I should know.

One would think but time and time again you show you don't. This thread as a prime example. First you start taling about e-mails the the provincial gove't and then you start alluding to Harris when in fact neither have anything to do with your hospital's cafeteria or kitchens.

....but do go on....and on...and on

[fellowtraveller]

The food prepared in our hospital kitchen was a source of pride to the whole community

I don't know if you meant that as a joke, but thanks for the laugh anyway.

I can just see the sign utside town: "Welcome to Dognuts, Ontario: Home of the Worlds Largest Waffle and Great Hospital Cafeteria Food!.

[margrace]

There are two things I am interested in. The name of the elusive food company supplying these hospitals and an auditor general for all the hospitals in Ontario. The first shouldn't be too hard for someone to show me how get it. The second may take a little time but I will work on it.

By the way I got a form type of answer to my email to Mr. Smitherman reminding me that hospital boards are all autonomous. So why is that, why does joe public not have any right to information in these hospitals. At our last Palliative Care conference we heard from the new head of our combined hospitals, a lot of double talk, we also heard from The Honourable Mr. Clement but absolutly nothing from the Ontario Health minister, neither will he answer emails.