Observations after a stay in Macon Hospital

I had different tests of course, but I asked for a sleeping pill after being told, wrongly as it turned out, that I had a cardiac problem and then I was woken up at 11 o’clock to do my blood pressure. Mad.
The beds and even the pillows are plastic covered and you keep slipping down. I got sore elbows from dragging myself back.

Not with Covid.

Very wise.

How difficult it seems to find the right people to deal with hospital meals and nutrition
My restaurant in London W14 enjoyed a really varied selection of clients which included heads of departments in Hammersmith hospital.There was often a discussion about the meals and my associated comments having been a patient. I had hoped that my ideas would be understood and possibly could help to raise the nutrition levels in ward meals
Cost effective is down to simple healthy food which is fresh in the form or soups, salads, cheeses fruit and some carbs like bread. This takes in vegetarian diets and most religious restrictions.
Well nothing became of my simple suggestion but Jamie Oliver was brought in to advise. I am not sure this was the best route.
Well the food in S W France hospitals which I have been in the food is not compatable with recovery and certainly I was unable to eat it.
i am a fussy eater that is for sure but like most of us I understand food and the joy of eating well.

There was a starter, a main dish with half a plate of cooked to death vegetable, bread and cheese and a bought in pudding.
Far too much for people in hospital who are not working and even worse not well. No option to vary the portion size.
I cannot understand why there is not a huge outcry at the waste involved in this policy.

Did you get a dinky of wine? They used to dole them out with dinner. I remember a maternity hospital in Grenoble that had a bar in the reception area, and you could smoke!

No wine and I am asthmatic and was having a crisis!

I’ve had asthma since childhood Jane. I’d always put it down to London smog and I was rather gratified (if that’s the word) to read recently that children that are exposed to pollution go on to have poorer lung function as adults. But we fight on, peak flow meter in one hand and oxymètre in the other. :slightly_smiling_face:

No I had my real first crisis, which is totally different from managing it on a day to day basis.

Dreadful. When I see the poor people suffering from Covid in hospitals I think back to the times I struggled for breath. A dreadful, frightening, exhausting experience. Difficult to describe unless one has experienced it. The first doctor I encountered that understood was a GP who was asthmatic himself.

I was diagnosed by Mike Thomas, who divided his time 50/50 between his time as a GP and doing research for Asthma UK.
I only became asthmatic after a severe chest infection aged 50.
I have wet asthma.

Alas, they are closed now

Sorry to hear about your bad experience. I’ve been in hospital 3 times in Decazeville (12), and (apart from the woeful hot chocolate), the food was varied and excellent. I think we must have a very good central kitchen here. Too much though, I agree. Once I was served 3 huge turkey legs with accompanying veg, and that was after a tartelette for entrée, followed by cheese, bread and dessert!

Hot chocolate, I couldn’t even get a mint tea!

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That does sound bad! As a non-coffee-drinker they were always offering me infusions of various kinds.

And so much of it too. Who on earth wants half a plateful of soggy green beans?

starving kids in Africa?

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When I was in Beziers hospital, each group of about twenty rooms (40 patients) had its own kitchen; each patient had his/her own prescribed diet, everything prepared fresh and tasty, the best hospital food I’ve experienced. By contrast, Guy de Chauillac in Montpellier had no kitchens so food was trucked in. I didn’t eat for a week it was so bad - I’ll never forget peeling off a covering and seeing a fish’s head staring at me. The only worse food I recall was at St George’s in London, which was prepared up to six hours earlier and stored in hotboxes, converting it to congealed mush - certainly completely inedible. Even now it seems that many medical establishments fail to recognise the importance of attractive, savoury food as a prelude to recovery in weak, sick patients.

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It’s easy to make off the cuff remarks. Obviously starving children anywhere want food. I dare say that there would be hungry children in Macon that would eat them, but in the context of a hospital patient, ill and not working, my remark stands.

I totally agree. You could live quite happily on the soup, bread and cheese and the bought in puddings. Some of the meat was edible as well.
It was the enormous amount of waste that horrified me.