Malnourished patients avoid hospital food

Hospital meals are so unappetising that many patients leave their food, according to a report on The Guardian.

Of the 2240 patients questioned:

o 40% had food brought in by family and friends
o Hospital meals were reported either too hot (dangerous microwaves?) or too cold (left lying around by understaffed orderlies?)
o Of those who needed help with eating, 22% did not get it (more staff shortages, or just plain uncaring staff?)

Whilst this report does bring concern to us all, there’s another aspect to consider.
‘It’s a fact that malnourished patients stay in hospital for longer and are three times as likely to develop complications during surgery’ according to the director general of Age Concern England, Gordon Lishman.

But when you read that sentence again, the patients were malnourished before they got to hospital

Why would more than a third of the surveyed patients leave their meals because of how they looked, smelled or tasted? It’s possible that due to their being malnourished before entering the hospital, it was because of their diet at home, which probably consisted of microwave meals at the very best, but mostly cheap processed meats, hamburgers and fizzy drinks.
No wonder the hospital food looked unappetising to them – it’s completely alien to their diet!
We did a quick Google Images search for hospital food, and if a well nourished person were given this meal he would find nothing to complain about

However, if you’re used to hamburgers, chips and cola, this is going to look, taste and smell disgusting. And even if you ate food like this for two days before your operation, your recovery period will be longer than the well-nourished healthy person who had been eating this way for years.

Health minister Andy Burnham says: ‘Hospital food has improved greatly over the past few years. There are some excellent menus around, but we do recognize more needs to be done’

Finally, there’s the one about children’s hospitals in the US linking up with MacDonald’s, which is enough to terrify any parent into trekking their own food to their child three or more times a day!

Image Sources=Flickr and Bumper Blog
Keyword=r_f