In the last couple of weeks a part of me just became so so fed up (pun) with the food stuff that I just shut down. It seems so futile. Talk about raging against the machine. It is daunting.
There is a total disconnect between the ones that plan for the feeding of the children and the rest of the hospital. If something is given to a child that resembles food it is "good enough". There is not an understanding that if it does not get into the body of the child (not the parents that graze out of desperation) it does not matter. Feeding of the critically ill is not really on the radar. Mary-Elizabeth is protein deficient and the first thing they thought about was Whey Powder. Not food, processed fake food. If I wasn't so discouraged, I would be laughing.
They know there is a problem and no one in the Administration, Dietary, or the Donors or the.... the list goes on, they just don't care.
I have read a number of articles about hospitals and there is pride when a meal for a child can be served for 67 cents down from 84 cents. I can tell you for certain that our dog Tucker gets fed better.
I am sitting at Starbucks about to cry. I just don't know what to do. The media is not interested. No one wants to say anything bad about Childrens. The administration does not care they know they are bullet proof. How can anyone say anything bad about this place, "The Cancer Kids Don't Eat Anyway".....
In the last 7 days Mary-Elizabeth has been served a small box of lettuce, two tablespoons of bottled Caesar dressing, 4 lemon slices. Now I hope the lettuce was washed but doubt it and the who knows if they washed the outside of the lemons.
Wouldn't you answer the following letter:
Each and every day I have to go out of this hospital to find something my daughter will eat. Each night I become more and more resentful of how much time and money and energy this piece our our day takes from my daughter. We knew that she would be here for 60 plus days three months before this admission. I tried to get this hospital's help in seeing that it would happen. I looked back in my blog and I have been addressing this problem for more than 5 months. It is so exhausting.
We have been here since the 15th of January and not a single meal has been provided to her that she would eat. The one thing that looked and smelled great was not safe for her to eat. There are 30+ parents each day that go through the same thing. This hospital does not feed it's most sick and seems to not care at all about it. It is not enough to say that in a couple of years we will have a new kitchen.
As I was coming back from UVillage last night I was trying to think how we can survive this current admission. So what if this facility provided each cancer family with a credit card that allowed us to purchase food and have either security or a taxi service pick up the food? Just a thought. We pay this facility 10,000+ a day. I would expect food to with come with the room. Please correct me if I am wrong.
I would like to not have to pay for her Starbucks breakfast in the morning or see the other parents struggle every day to find food that will assist in help their children get better. The same over cooked over processed, low quality food will come to this floor, day after day. Dietary knows they are not feeding this kid.
So tomorrow, I will do the same thing I have done for months. I will seek food for my daughter from some other place.
Maybe at the next fancy fund raising event or board meeting that the public can not attend, should be sent a tray from the kitchen. I challenge you and your staff to eat only food served to the kids on the SCCA floor for 90 days.
Sally A. Lanham
Mother of Mary-Elizabeth Sierra-Lanham
No where on the mission statement is there a mention of feeding anyone.
3 comments:
This is heartbreaking and true of hospitals everywhere. We had the same problem at the LDS hospital in Salt Lake. The health care was top-notch, the food was inedible. Nutrition support was non-existent. As you say, the one thing that came up from the kitchen (a spinach salad in our case) was deemed not fit to eat by a doctor who just happened to be in the room when it was delivered. Apparently there is no communication between the medical team and the kitchen. What can be done? In other countries, hospitals don't even have kitchens; patients are dependent on their relatives to bring food in. Well - at least they are probably getting something edible! Hang in there, you are coming to the end of this challenge.
I wonder if this is something Jamie Oliver (Food Revolution, mostly with respect to school lunches) would be interested in... might bring some much needed attention to this obviously very important and oft overlooked cause.
I just read this post. I totally agree. Sara always ate organically, and always got her vegetables. Food here is a joke. There's also so much waste, too. Sickening.
My cousin is a kidney doctor and throughout his entire schooling, he had one semester on the dietary side of the issue. I one day asked one of the attendings if any types of food fed the cancer. "No. It doesn't make a difference, " she answered me. Wow. Really? Sugar? So they can eat anything they want, but none of that makes a difference. Right. That makes total sense.
I loved your challenge for the Children's staff to eat what cancer patients eat for 90 days. They'd probably get sick. There's no way they put anything like the food here into their bodies 3 times a day. Not a chance, I don't think.
Love your posts. I think they're hilarious, well- written, and tender.
Mattison (Sara's friend)
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