My friend "Josh" suffered a stroke a couple of months back. He is doing really well, but still needs to be in the rehab hospital until the docs are satisfied that he can perform tasks like eat independently without choking and walk unassisted without falling. Eating and swallowing have been more of a challenge than some other things; it took a while to work up to eating pureed foods and only very recently has he been allowed food that he must chew and swallow. So the other night they bring him this for dinner:
That slab you see, that looks like a puddle of dried vomit, is supposed to be roast turkey breast.
This is a guy for whom eating is already very hard work. Someone must have thought very hard to come up with a meal that looked so unappetizing that he would not want to make the effort to eat it. His husband "Pascal" got him a takeout order at Swiss Chalet and minced the chicken small enough that Josh could handle chewing it. It's what Pascal ends up doing frequently so that Josh can halfway enjoy his meals.
There have always been jokes about the quality of hospital food, but when did it become such a horror show?
"Hang on while I log in to the James Webb telescope to search the known universe for who the fuck asked you." -- James Fell
my dad was in a rehab center for the last 2-3 months of is life (around 10 years ago) and got pretty much the same food; he just refused to eat it and got sicker (indeed, I'm sure it shortened his life; but he and I refused to allow a feeding tube to be inserted). I'm sure there have to be ways to make it more appetizing (the applesauce probably is OK), but those thickened liquids are nothing short of horrible (give the patient shakes or even jello instead--coffee having the viscosity of cold molasses is probably one of the grossest things I can think of). But that's hospitals (and medicine generally), treat the symptom, not the patient.
Uh, Scooter... isn't "Josh" a bit redundant with his actual name shown in the photo? Perhaps it was someone else's tray but maybe you should crop it?
My own experience of food at UH Ahuja in Beachwood was not at all like that. The food wasn't something I'd want to invite friends over to share, but it was perfectly adequate and I had a very wide range of choices. Stuck with fruit, veggies, soup and juice mostly. But one day I broke down and ordered a full dinner which was, at the least, better than most cattle-class noshes in an aeroplane.
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts
While that slice of turkey is definitely unappetizing — judging from the marks on the plate, it looks like it was put on the dish and then microwaved within a half-inch of its life — the rest of this is par for the course.
And if you look at the top of the "meal order" ticket, you will see that there are some dietary restrictions for poor ol' "Josh" — specifically 'LAR, ORA, soft, NEC, thick liq'. Don't know what these abbreviations and acronyms mean; someone with nursing, medical, or hospital dietician experience would probably be able to enlighten us — but the upshot is that he's not on a 'regular' menu and this is custom-suited to his condition, to avoid adverse reaction with the medications he may be on, or his ability to chew and swallow or otherwise take nourishment. -"BB"-
Yes, I suppose I could agree with you ... but then we'd both be wrong, wouldn't we?
The hospital food my mother got in the UK was just as dreadful Scooter.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Both hospitals in Montana where I had surgeries had better-looking food than that. Still bland, but that IS the purpose of hospital food: to provide balanced nourishment without spice that might upset many patients' healing process - as so many have gastric issues inherently, or post-operatively, or consequent of the illness for which they're hospitalised.
A nice salt-free Mrs. Dash-type blend might be good to bring him. Maybe sneak in some butter if it's not contrary to his dietary protocol in some damaging way?
But yes, bringing in food for a patient stuck in hospital for a long time is always a kind gesture. Even when the food's much better than that looks to be, it still becomes tiresome in short order.
As to why, I'm not sure that isn't a product of large-scale institutional food prep; I think it could be done better, even IKEA manages to put out quite tasty food on an industrial level at a reasonable price point, after all - but maybe that would cut too far into the medical-industrial-complex's profit margin. Patients are cattle to them, after all.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan
Bicycle Bill wrote:While that slice of turkey is definitely unappetizing — judging from the marks on the plate, it looks like it was put on the dish and then microwaved within a half-inch of its life — the rest of this is par for the course.
And if you look at the top of the "meal order" ticket, you will see that there are some dietary restrictions for poor ol' "Josh" — specifically 'LAR, ORA, soft, NEC, thick liq'. Don't know what these abbreviations and acronyms mean; someone with nursing, medical, or hospital dietician experience would probably be able to enlighten us — but the upshot is that he's not on a 'regular' menu and this is custom-suited to his condition, to avoid adverse reaction with the medications he may be on, or his ability to chew and swallow or otherwise take nourishment. -"BB"-
You are correct BB, he does appear to have significant dietary restrictions; but I would think the food could still be prepared and presented to be more appetizing than a nuked slice of Turkey loaf, dried out rice and thickened liquids that are generally undrinkable (again, give him jello or yogurt, even thick shakes if they are in his diet). sure, there is a lot he cannot eat at this time, but there should be a way to encourage him to eat what he can.
In any hospital setting, nutrition is a secondary issue and the choices available are limited by: 1, restrictions concerning the particular patient; and 2, the need to make a mass produced meal that can be delivered efficiently and still reasonably "hot." Resources available to the particular facility also are going to impact the choices and quality. I don't believe the vast majority of people who work at rehab facilities or hospitals would tell you that they intentionally treat anybody badly, and in fact work pretty damn hard to do just the opposite.
But yes, that "meal" looks particularly gruesome.
“I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, paraphrasing Sarah Moore Grimké
We had some pretty good food in the psych ward. I had a low salt restriction but I traded some of the fruit they gave me with my meal for bacon.
They gave us a meal card and I would add extra fruit for my breakfast and this nice lady I made friends with would order extra bacon and we would trade.
Intentionally, no--I agree with you. But IMHO the problem is precisely what you said, that the meals are a secondary issue. IMHO, hospitals 9and medicine in general) opt more often to treat the symptoms and not the patient , which is why it is far easier to just present unappetizing choices which comply with what the conditions dictate, without much concern about what the entire person wants or needs. As I said above, during the last months of his life my father had major dietary restrictions, including thickened liquids; many of the offerings (like coffee the consistency of STP oil treatment that tasted as bad as it looked) were pretty inedible, and the trays I saw often just sent them back untouched--yet they did nothing more.
Now my father could have jello and pudding and even shakes which he would consume, and I brought them in regularly, yet the dietary staff just continued sending the prepackaged thickened liquids, whether they were consumed or not. Any thought of more palatable alternatives must have just been ignored. It wasn't a matter of expense--I looked online and these offerings were quite expensive--much more so than what I brought in; but I do think the facility and hospital chose to just do what the symptoms dictated without any concern to what the patient wanted or needed.
Granted, we cannot and should not expect gourmet cuisine; but edible food presented in an attractive way should not be too much to ask. And if we were to focus on the entire patient, not just the particular symptom, I think we would get that.
Hospitals serve crappy food because it is easy and cheap and the kitchen workers are low paid. They are low paid to preserve profits in private hospitals and they are low paid to cut costs in non-private hospitals.
On the other hand a glass of wine with lunch and dinner with the percocet really took the edge off after the laminectomy and the hospital dietition (a very cute petite blond) smuggled in a six pack which we drank together watching the super bowl. It was not all bad.
Your fantasy life is quite well embedded and embellished, isn't it double cock?
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
