"SCGH bring back CF Fridges!"

I transferred from PMH (Princess Margaret Hospital) to SCGH (Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital) when I was 18. I have Cystic Fibrosis. They had fridges for my first few admissions and they were an awesome asset the hospital had during my 2-3 week admissions. My parents would bring in food & snacks & drinks that were high in fat and protein (full cream milk, home made meals, ice creams, yoghurt, choc milk, fruit, etc.) that I could have access too all day long as I am always hungry, especially in hospital when we don’t have the normal access to whatever food we like and need for our diets. As much as the hospital tries to cater for CF patients with the menus, fridges make our admissions so much easier as we need to eat more than 3 meals a day and many of us eat all day long with little breaks in between. When sick, a lot of us lose weight, so eating often and having access to a fridge and our own food and snacks is important to our health. Since the fridges have been removed admissions have been more difficult. I can only have snacks brought in that don’t require refrigeration (fruit, biscuits etc) that don’t have much fat/protein in them and aren’t very nutritionally crucial to my CF diet to managing weight.

In 2018, I would have spent at least $300 per admission/about $25-50 per day on Uber Eats to satisfy my hunger whilst in hospital and I was in hospital at least 4 times during 2018. Understandably, this gets very expensive at the expense of taking away the fridges on G54. The kitchen closes very early and CF patients like myself can continue eating up until they go to sleep, which is sometimes quite late. Also on another note, if I were to be admitted in 2019 whilst I am breastfeeding, I would need access to a personal fridge as I need to express & store breast milk in the fridge for my young baby to have at home/whilst visiting. Without a fridge my breastfeeding journey would become incredibly difficult whilst an inpatient and may force me to stop before I am ready to. Please bring back the fridges, we need them.