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Care Opinion

Poor food quality

Posted By Perturbed

"Poor food quality"

About: Prince of Wales Hospital / L0 NCCC - Radiation Oncology Unit

(as a parent/guardian),

My teenage child, was recently diagnosed with bone cancer and underwent their first round of chemotherapy recently at the Prince of Wales Hospital, Randwick NSW.

As you can imagine, having chemotherapy is very difficult, especially for a young person. It is painful, scary and challenging. As a parent, you need all the help you can muster to support your child. It was really disappointing for me to discover that the food offered by the hospital was so terrible, in my opinion. It seemed to me poor quality, mushy, used frozen veggies, smelt revolting and was unappealing. My child could not eat it. There was no toaster in the kitchen, probably because of health and safety requirements. I had to go down to the hospital cafe and was charged $6.50 for two bits of toast. I had to go out and buy dinner for my child as they refused to eat what was on offer. 

I feel particularly when you are very sick, you need healthy, fresh and appealing food. I know hospitals have budgets, but seriously I feel this food would make me feel sicker. 

I believe NSW Health needs to have a long hard look at the food they are serving up to their patients. 

My child has to endure six months of chemotherapy. I hope that over this time the hospital food improves. In the meantime I guess I will have to bring in decent healthy food for my child. I hope this message gets through to the people that make decisions about food quality for patients. Thankyou.

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Responses

Update posted by Perturbed (a parent/guardian)

It's been over six months since I posted this story. Noone from Prince of Wales Hospital has responded. I followed this up two months ago with Care Opinion who said they have sent my feedback to the relevant people at the Prince of Wales but I am still waiting for a response.

I note that in the new Acute Services Building at the Prince of Wales Hospital Precinct, they have TV screens at the lifts promoting the use of Care Opinion. I feel they should remove the advert as no one replies to all queries. I believe it's false advertising in my case.

The food is still in my opinion, awful and my child still refuses to eat it. The food contract which has meals cooked externally, frozen, transported and defrosted, and reheated in the hospital, I believe produces poor quality, mushy meals.

I feel the fridge on the level 4 Oncology and Haematology Ward is too small for the size of the ward. I am still bringing in all lunches and dinners for my child for the past seven months.

I feel it is a nice new building, but a shame about the food.

Response from Karen Tuqiri, Director of Nursing, Prince of Wales Hospital 11 months ago
We are preparing to make a change
Karen Tuqiri
Director of Nursing,
Prince of Wales Hospital

Submitted on 11/05/2023 at 12:54 PM
Published on Care Opinion at 12:58 PM

Dear Perturbed,

Thank you for providing your feedback. Firstly I apologise for the length of time it has taken to respond to your concerns. It has recently been forwarded to me to review along with other care opinion feedback concerning the quality of food provided to patients. We recognise the importance of nutrition in supporting overall health, experience and recovery from illness. As you are aware the food services across NSW Health are managed by HealthShare and whilst our dieticians are involved in the selection of meals we have limited control over the quality of the food supplied.

We will forward all of the feedback received regarding the quality of food to HealthShare and would also suggest you contact Healthshare directly on hsnsw@yourfeedback.nsw.gov.au to provide your concerns.

Thankyou for identifying the concerns with the size of the fridge on the Haematology/Oncology ward in the Acute Services Building. We have reviewed the fridge and agree that the size is limiting and will review to either replace with a larger fridge or an additional fridge in the ward that patients and families can access.

Thank you for providing the feedback and if you would like to provide any further feedback happy for you to contact me karen.tuqiri@health.nsw.gov.au

Kind regards

Karen

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Update posted by Perturbed (a parent/guardian)

Dear Karen,

Thank you for your response. I am glad you think that the fridge and lack of freezer is inadequate to cater for patients food in the Oncology/Haematology ward. It seems to me this space helps to store fresh food for patients due to what I believe is poor quality hospital food. I look forward to seeing a larger fridge /freezer delivered.

I feel it is a pity that NSW Health and all the public hospitals who are paying clients of HealthShare, feel they have no control over food quality. As the client I thought you would like to not only see value for money but ensure food quality for the health of patients. In my opinion, perhaps regular surveys of patients and assessments by independent dieticians could evaluate benchmarks in HealthShare contracts to improve food quality.

I feel there is plenty of room for improvement.

Thank you for your time.

regards

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