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Care Opinion

Everything has nuts in it

Posted By allergy-prone

"Everything has nuts in it"

About: Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital

(as a service user),

I am allergic to nuts. Recently, I spent a couple of nights in Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital and was disappointed to discover I could not have the porridge for breakfast as it may contain nuts, nor could I have the cornflakes for the same reason. I was left only with the option of Weetbix, which was disappointing as I also wanted toast, and toast and Weetbix, in my opinion, is all a bit of the same thing really. 

I recently spent a night at a different hospital and they were able to serve cornflakes to me. There was also one main course I couldn't have at SCGH because it might contain nuts. I am also allergic to orange and yet was given orange jelly on one occasion. The nurse told me not to eat it. 

Then when I went to the cafeteria as an outpatient, I wanted to have a salad. There were two salads displayed; one salad had nuts in it, and the other one didn't but was next to the one with nuts so the cafeteria staff said they were not comfortable serving it to me. They offered to make me up a fresh garden salad but it cost $3.00 extra.


Based on my experience, I am disappointed that a major hospital serves nuts in their food.

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Responses

Response from Janet Zagari, Executive Director, Sir Charles Gairdner Osborne Park Health Care Group 3 years ago
We are preparing to make a change
Janet Zagari
Executive Director,
Sir Charles Gairdner Osborne Park Health Care Group

Submitted on 4/09/2020 at 6:26 PM
Published on Care Opinion on 7/09/2020 at 8:48 AM

picture of Janet Zagari

Dear allergy-prone,

I am so sorry to hear of your dissatisfaction with the food choices when you were a patient at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital.

I have been advised by Patient Support Services that if a product is manufactured in premises that also manufacture nut products, we identify that the product “may contain” the allergen. As an organisation we take food allergens very seriously because our patient's safety is paramount to us. This means that we were unable to offer you cornflakes as the commercial manufacturer could not guarantee that it did not contain nuts. We are not able to comment as to why this was deemed suitable at another site.

With regards to your feedback related to the orange jelly, you have raised a very important point. Moving forward we are putting in place a change of practice to ensure that “generic” menu items such as jelly are identified with the flavour to assist our patients with menu choices. You should not have been given orange jelly when you have an identified allergy and I apologise that this was the case.

We pride ourselves on our new menu system and the ability to be flexible and cater to patient food choices and I am sorry that we did not meet your expectations.

Once again thank you for providing us with feedback so that we can work to continuously improve the care for our patients.

Kind regards,

Janet Zagari

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