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Care Opinion

Fat food is friendly

Posted By Pindan Girl

"Fat food is friendly"

About: Geraldton Hospital

(as the patient),

I have been in hospital for a number of days now and not once have I been consulted about food. The catering staff bring menus around and I mark that I would like a full fat diet and so far all I have received is a low fat diet full of salt. 

I used to work in a hospital kitchen and we cooked healthy nutritious food from scratch. The food I am receiving is packaged food, high in salt and most likely doing more harm than good. Food should be cooked from scratch using iodised salt with the correct mix of salt and potassium. The food should be nutritional and so far from what I have read on the packaging the food doesn't appear to be that way. 

Fat is not bad for you. It has be demonised for years and the information is wrong. I would like the catering staff to take a look at the current research (there is plenty of it) and keep up to date, providing nutritional food to patients in hospital. 

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Responses

Response from Michele Young, REOC Lead, Executive Services, WACHS-Midwest 5 years ago
Michele Young
REOC Lead, Executive Services,
WACHS-Midwest

Submitted on 13/07/2018 at 6:01 PM
Published on Care Opinion on 16/07/2018 at 9:23 AM

picture of Michele Young

Dear Pindan Girl

Thank you for taking the time to share your experience on Patient Opinion. WA Country Health Service Midwest has a duty of care to ensure our patients have access to nutritious appropriate foods during a stay in hospital and to provide menus that enable patients to meet recommended dietary intake requirements. Geraldton Hospital’s food service is informed by the Nutrition Standards for Adult Inpatient in WA Hospitals, this is a guide used by all WA Public Hospitals to design menus that ensure adult inpatients meet their nutritional requirements during a stay in hospital.

Geraldton Hospital meals are prepared fresh on site, include no added salt and have quality checks prior to leaving the kitchen area. I would like to apologise sincerely that this was not your experience during your stay. We would like an opportunity to discuss your concerns further and I invite you to contact Derek Fraser, Operations Manager Geraldton Hospital on 9956 2369 or myself, Michele Young on 9956 8695 or Michele.young@health.wa.gov.au

Geraldton Hospital does undergo audits and regular satisfaction surveys in relation to providing meals. As part of the audit process staff and community members taste, review and provide feedback on food Geraldton Hospital presents to patients. These reviews are organised randomly and the aim of having a mixed group review standard and special diet meals is to ensure we are consistently producing nutritious, balanced, appealing and tasty meals for patients. The addition of community members to the review of the food has been beneficial and many of the recipes have been adjusted to achieve the desired taste, texture or appeal while still meeting the Nutrition Standards. We would love to have you come on board to help us. I have just become a staff member who is going to join in on providing feedback.

Thanks again for sharing your story on Patient Opinion, food is such an integral aspect of health and wellbeing and plays an important role in recovery of our patients during a stay in hospital and we need to get it right.

I wish you all the best and we hope to hear from you soon.

Best wishes

Michele

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