Hospital food

I had to stay overnight in hospital - one of Melbourne's private hospitals in swanky East Melbourne. It was a minor thing - a weird cyst, benign tumour, call it what you will, on my left heel, needed cutting out, and because it was a reasonable size it needed a skin graft and the services of a plastic surgeon. Hence the overnight stay so that they could keep an eye on it. It's all gone well and I am now back home with my massively dressed foot on a pillow - in the garden on a beautifully mild Melbourne summer's day. No pain and a husband to wait on me hand and foot.

But I did not intend to write about my foot. What I wanted to say, even though this post is about hospital food, is that if you want to eat proper hospital food you need to be out of your operation and in your hospital bed before 1.00 or else you run the risk of not getting any. I suspect it's the same at all hospitals, not just St. Vincent's.

I was back in my room by about 5.30 and feeling hungry. I had not eaten or drunk anything since the night before, so when I was offered a sandwich I accepted. And it was a quite pleasant, healthy sandwich of ham and lettuce and tomato. Not flavoured with any sauces. But it was very welcome. I thought to myself, dinner will be coming around soon, so I shouldn't have too much. I almost only ate one side of the sandwich for this reason, but basically I'm a bit greedy.

But no dinner came. I waited and waited - didn't ask because, I stupidly don't like to make a fuss. When it got to seven I started to think that I just had been forgotten because previous stays in hospitals have taught me that dinner comes early. But I still didn't say anything until around 8.00 o'clock. When it was explained to me that the kitchen closed at 5.00 I think and therefore no dinner. Pretty poor I reckon. So it was another sandwich.

Oh well I thought, at least there will be breakfast. And there was. But again, if you don't get your order in before 1.00 (I wasn't there until 2.00) then you don't get to choose what you want - and having seen the choice there are quite a lot of options.

So I got a bowl of cornflakes and a bottle of milk - can't drink milk, don't like cornflakes. A big cup of tea - don't like tea. A fairly nice roll, some jam and margarine, some apple juice and some SPC two fruits in juice. What I had was actually quite nice but I did plaintively tell the nurse I didn't like tea and she said she would bring me some coffee.

But she never did.

And now I come to think of it my husband promised me a cup of coffee when we got home. But I never got that either!

So I felt a bit miffed. If they can produce a 'standard' breakfast surely they can produce a 'standard' dinner. You never used to get any choice anyway, but now there is a choice three main dishes and lots of other options. As for breakfast - why can't you order that at 5.00 in the afternoon. Surely they are not making scrambled eggs for the next day then? And margerine, not butter. Not too hard to throw both little sachets on the tray surely.

The surgery was great, the nurses were wonderful, I had a lovely room and I wasn't actually expecting much of the food, but I was expecting some. I might even see if I can leave a comment on their website.