MIKE Proctor, director of nursing at York Hospital, quotes a figure of 40 per cent of elderly patients leaving hospital malnourished.
Could the quality of the food have any bearing on this?
My husband recently spent nearly eight weeks in York Hospital's Elderly Medical Unit, and the food he was offered seldom looked appetising. I tasted hotpot one day that he was just pushing around his plate and I am certain that it came from a tin.
People in their 70s and 80s are of a generation that had been used to good, home-cooked food, for which the hospital's offerings are a very poor substitute.
Are the new visiting times designed to prevent relatives seeing the standard of food on offer?
The new visiting times for the Elderly Medical Unit are too restrictive, particularly for people who have to rely on public transport.
As lunch is served at 12.30pm, why not allow visiting from 2pm, and have a break from 4.30 to 6pm only. Surely one-and-a-half hours is plenty of time to eat a simple meal, with or without assistance.
Mrs G M Page,
Gale Lane,
York.
Updated: 10:56 Thursday, December 22, 2005
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