There’s Nothing Like A Nice Dinner

at

vincent's

And this is nothing like a nice dinner.

SK writes:

St Vincent’s [Hospital, Merrion Road, Dublin 4] going for the Michelin star [This evening] …Sausage Roll with Beans. Decent tay though….

Needs more Oliver Dunne

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87 thoughts on “There’s Nothing Like A Nice Dinner

  1. Nikkeboentje

    It amazes me how people are expected to get better whilst eating food with poor nutritional value. I know that there are other more important things to spend the money on in the health sector, but some fresh vegetables and a recognisable piece of meat wouldn’t go amiss.

    1. Anne

      “recognisable piece of meat wouldn’t go amiss.”
      I’ve been saying this for years.

      But in terms of food, that dinner looks woeful.

    2. gallantman

      No more important thing for general health than good diet. Definition of false economy right there!!

  2. CousinJack

    Should gone through the tunnel to St Vincents Private, much better cuisine
    In some european countries relatives are expected to bring in meals

        1. Ciarán

          1. Greece
          2. Bosnia
          3.

          I’d settle for three to cover saying ‘some European countries’. Any Western/Northern European countries, or even just a non-Balkan country?

    1. I, Scooperman

      Exactly. If they’re determined to dole out shite at least pass the Chinese menu around or get domino’s in

    1. cluster

      Nothing wrong with reusing meat from yesterday’s roast in today’s salad. It’s basic common sense. I’d be more worried about mets not on yesterday’s roast.

      1. Robyn

        Typically I’d agree with you, but for whatever reason, it manages to go from resembling something possibly edible on day 1, into dry, tough, questionably coloured horror on day 2, when served in a hospital setting.

        1. andyourpointiswhatexactly

          That’s Campbell Catering for you. Whatever the veg is the previous day, it’s the next day’s soup. I could never be convinced that they didn’t scrape the veg off the dirty plates into the pots to make the soup. RANK.

  3. Soundings

    Wholemeal bread, tea, sausage roll and beans in tomato sauce. What’s wrong with that? You’re in hospital. I don’t want my tax euros spent on unnecessary cooking. All of the above is easy and cheap to store and prepare. The lack of fruit isn’t going to kill you for a month or two, especially if you’re lying on your back; you’re not running marathons, lifting weights or running the country. Looks like around 75c of food which is about right. Bon apetit, get well soon, the sooner you stop costing the rest of us for your health the better for everyone including yourself.

    1. Sidewinder

      It’s amazing the nonsense people come put with when they refuse to consider complex issues for more than eleven seconds.

      Do you have any idea how much food supplements cost? The likes of calogen and fortisip? And how much is given to underweight or immunocompromised people? Or how it is digested? Or the impact of digestion on healing and the immune system? Or its impact on people with dysphagia?

      Proper digestion and nutrition is ESSENTIAL to healing. Poor wound healing is directly linked to poor nutrition.

      As per usual it would save the healthcare system money to do this right but we’re blinded by crappy attitudes around short term cost, regardless of the impact on long term health.

      Fifty quid says you’re the same kind of person who complains about MRSA in hospitals – something that helps the body resist and fight MRSA infections? Oh look proper nutrition does.

      1. Soundings

        “Dysphagia”? Sounds complicated. You really sound like you’ve spent more than 11 seconds on the question of nutrition in hospitals and can probably link to a dozen scholarly research reports on the matter? No? Didn’t think so. As far as my amateur eye can tell, most general hospital patients are not there with some critical condition where scientifically pre-calculated nutrition is going to make one iota of difference to the time it will take to get someone out the door. Okay, instead of them being judged ready to leave at 8am on Monday, they’ll be ready at 10am on Monday. Big whoop, not worth the cost. Stuff them with 1,500-2,000 calories as cheaply and efficiently as possible, and the end result to getting them out the door will not be markedly different to long thought-out and expensive nutrition (blueberries go off quicker than a tin of beans)
        Hospitals are not there to get you back to peak physical condition, just to treat and feed you barely enough so you can go home, where you can control your own nutrition.
        Again, get well soon to the patient facing that meal this evening. But you’re in a hospital, not a restaurant or your own home, though I hope you’ll be fit enough for both soon.

        1. cluster

          It’s probably true that the quality if the good is going to make little significant difference to the recovery of patients.

          But that looks so utterly depressing. I’d also wonder whether it is actually the cheapest option or if it is the cheapest option which allows the relevant HSE bureaucrat oh back to playing Minesweeper & avoid doing any work.

          1. Sidewinder

            It’s not true. And it’s not the cheapest way.

            Also

            http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/3133112

            http://www.clinicalnutritionjournal.com/article/S0261-5614(00)90150-X/abstract#/article/S0261-5614(00)90150-X/abstract

            http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1177923

            http://www.bapen.org.uk/pdfs/coe_leaflet.pdf

            http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/11820238/

            Kondrup J, Johansen N, Plum L, et al. Incidence of nutritional risk and causes of inadequate nutritional care in hospitals. Clin Nutr 2002;21:461-8

          2. Sidewinder

            Oh and also – do you really think two hours of hospital care costs less than a week’s worth of decent meals?

        2. Sidewinder

          I’m a qualified dietitian. I work in a hospital.

          Bad meals are not cost effective. Nor are pre-calculated nutritional plans As you describe which is pretty much what we actually do currently for certain patients. Slow healing leads to longer hospital stays (since you referenced discharging), longer waiting lists and more expense for the HSE. It is more cost effective for the HSE to produce a broadly nutritious meal plan for all admissions which can be further fortified for exceptional cases at a lower cost than we have now. Vast number of hospital admissions are elderly or immunocompromised people – many of whom then acquire secondary illnesses in hospital because of poor conditions (including nutrition) costing the HSE more money.

          ps Dysphagia is complex. You got one thing right. Well done.

          1. Soundings

            “Qualified dietician”, eh? If I ever get a free weekend, I might get me one of those qualifications, how long does it take to absorb, “eat more fruit and veg, less red meat, more fish, less processed food, less calories overall”, five minutes?

            As to the linked articles, thanks, but they appear to be subscription. Surely, someone in the NHS or US Dept of Health has produced a free article which establishes the cost efficiency of a nutritionally rich hospital diet? No? How strange? Never mind, cite a few esoteric articles.

            I stand by the opinion that hospitals need serve the basic minimum to provide sustenance all with the aim of getting patients out the door as quickly as possible, not down to precise minute. Yes, in an ideal world, patients should be provided an a la carte, nutritionally rich diet, it’s nice to be nice to people, especially if they’re not well, and no doubt nutrition has some effect on wellbeing, but I don’t want to pay 60% combined USC/income.

          2. lawless Frilly Keane

            That’s a wanky response Soundings

            Ignorant and immature
            Sloppy and stupid

            Are you all those?

          3. Grouse

            Look, Soundings. Your response to the sources you asked for—lazy slagging of her/his qualifications, dismissal of demanded sources—make you sound massively petty here. Is there literally anything Sidewinder might have said that would have made you concede a point? Because I can’t imagine a more complete defeat than you saying “You really sound like you’ve spent more than 11 seconds on the question of nutrition in hospitals and can probably link to a dozen scholarly research reports on the matter? No?” and then finding out you’re talking to a hospital nutritionist who can link the research on demand.

            There is nothing that makes losing an argument more embarrassing than obstinate inability to acknowledge the loss.

          4. Medium Sized C

            Soundings got the wrong end of the Dietician/Nutritionist thing.

            Which might be forgiveable, if Soundings wasn’t demeaning a member of a profession with defined professional qualifications.

            Soundings did not do well here.

          5. Sidewinder

            Exactly like calling a physio a chiropractor yes.

            To paraphrase Dara O’Briain:

            A dietitian is to a nutritionist as a dentist is to a toothiologist.

            Also NB dietiTian, not dietiCian.

            I have a bachelor of science in human nutrition and dietetics from Trinity College that took me four years to earn.
            I treat people with diabetes, heart disease, renal disease, liver disease, cystic fibrosis, lung cancer and more.

            What did you do today?

          6. Soundings

            Medium C, who made you Simon Cowell?

            Skerries, if you have to ask….

            Frilly, you could have scrapped me off the wall after getting those two barrels of profound wit, remind me never to tangle with you

            As for the core point here, both for health and just good societal conditions, good nutrition in hospital is desirable. But that conflicts with costs to the public purse. And as far as I can see, the accepted wisdom here in Ireland, in the UK and the US, is that you give patients the bare minimum to sustain them until you can boot them out the door. And no-one here has countered that with solid data. I’m an amateur in this, but I notice that a lot of patients in public hospitals are elderly awaiting places in nursing homes, and all you’ll do with shovelling brocolli and blueberries into them, is producing expensive excrement. Will give Sidewinder the benefit of the doubt with their expertise – I was taking the mickey because you must know that the average Joe won’t have a clue about dysphagia, right? – but, Sidewinder, you haven’t provided a justification on cost grounds and that’s where I come out on this.

          7. Sidewinder

            The only article I listed that isn’t publicly available is the last one and I’m not even sure about that as I just took the reference from a paper I read recently. Did you even click the links?

            Also screw your benefit of the doubt. My B.Sc exists whether you deign to acknowledge it or not.

            You say you haven’t been persuaded and frankly I don’t care. You made the claim that this kind of food is grand yet so far I see know credentials, no research papers cited, not cost benefit analysis proposed. You didn’t even do the slightest of googles to tell you what a dietitian is and what dysphagia is.

            For someone who questions the scientific credibility of others you have an astoundingly poor understanding of how a scientific argument is made.

          8. Grouse

            Excuse my “nutritionist”. I’ve never had any medical dealings with dieticians and am fairly ignorant about terminology in the area!

            It’s funny, without contextual knowledge both words seem fairly equivalent. “Nutrition” does not, in-and-of-itself, seem like a flakey word.

          9. Sidewinder

            No, it’s fair enough. It’s a correction I often have to make. Mind you it didn’t used to be necessary til all the bloody charlatans showed up, I’m fairly newly qualified but I know older dietitians who trained in the UK who watched the trend grow with horror and we often have to work very hard to gain the trust of skeptical patients and their families.

          10. Stephanenny

            Tbf Sidewinder most of those are abstracts rather than full articles. However one of them is a Council of Europe document which Soundings would definitely have been able to open if s/he had tried.

            I’m a physio (not a chiropractor) and sidewinder’s also right about the dietitian/nutritionist thing. One is a protected term and one isn’t, much like physiotherapist and chiropractor. I used to work in care of the elderly and dietitians were essential to patient care. Good dietetics would save the HSE a fortune but they never can see the wood for the trees. The number of patients I’ve see with prolonged stays in hospital because of wounds getting infected, or healing going too slowly is beyond count. It’s also worth noting just how expensive specialised wound dressings are like we’re talking hundreds of euro in the course of a week. I’m not a dietitian but I’d say even a fairly minor improvement in hospital food would be extremely cost effective.

            You also referenced elderly patients awaiting long term care – do you know how essential diet is to the health of an older person? The massive range of complications they get because of poor diet? Sidewinder referenced supplements which half of them are absolutely guzzling down (btw supplements isn’t like ginseng or some shite it’s a high calorie drink usually recommended by a dietitian that is prescribed by a GP and costs a fortune) when if they were just given good soup made from cream rather than milk that would do the trick half the time (or so say dietitians I’ve worked with). Furthermore the number of times I’ve heard about places in homes becoming available to patients and then the homes not being able to take them because they’ve developed a new infection or the home can’t treat the wound. God if I roll my eyes any harder they’ll fall out.

            In short – listen to the experts on this. You’re talking out your arse and with no experience of working in healthcare let alone the HSE.

    1. mauriac

      gruel,dogfood,a one n’one,a battered mars bar?people in hospital should get the best food not “alright” food.

    1. Mani

      Thanks for explaining a joke that’s as old as his term, and with buzzfeed to back you up.

      That is more depressing than this sub-Deli Counter at Spar breakfast hospital meal.

    1. cluster

      The idea of a public health system is that we all pay into it and we all take from it.

      Part of the merit in making the system fully universalistic is that idiots like you realise that you will face the same outcomes instead of letting petty bourgeois begrudgery determine your reactions to these things.

      1. Digs

        Cluster, I’ve been in hospital as a public patient many times. I’ve had great medical care by great medics. My care by nurses was incredible. Once they don’t open a tin of pedigree chum and serve it to me, I eat what I’m given. If I don’t like it, I don’t eat it. There’s a strong whiff of dullard from your post.
        You sound like a a dim witted sociology student from Galway. Are you.?

        1. Mani

          If you cannot grasp the importance of a healthy well balanced meal or even a palatable meal in the recovery of a patient then I’d say you sat the CAO out, drinking Buckfast in a field telling your friend how college wasn’t for you because you were ‘too smart to play the system, man’.

          1. Digs

            Next you’ll be telling me to boycott irish water. Nutrition is the dietary equivalent of global warming man.

        1. mauriac

          replying to Digs and thinking of … come to think of it the iniquity of the American healthcare system was shown rather than personified in BB but I’m sure Tooko and Hank were right wing morons.

        2. Mani

          Not to get off topic but I’d accuse Saul of being venal, not evil. And ultimately practical, and bizarrely loyal to his clients.

  4. BlessingtonBootBoy

    Tomato sauce seepage into sausage roll, heads need to roll. Seriously though, that’s brutal.

  5. amy

    I used to be appalled at what sick patients got fed in hospital. Until I heard a dietician explain on the radio. The reason why people are being fed seemingly not very nutritious food is because what aides recovery best is a temporarily high calorie intake. Their bodies have just gone through trauma (operations, accidents, etc) and cannot digest highly fibrous food (such as vegetables) as efficiently as a healthy person. Carbs teamed with a dose of fat will feed the muscles best and make the body recover quicker. When the hospital stay is over (generally between a few days and a few weeks), the patient needs to get back to an all round healthy and varied diet with a good intake of all of the recommended food groups.

    Granted, many food that patients are given are too high in salt which I don’t think is good for anyone… I guess it must be a very difficult job to make a cost effective, all-round menu that suits the majority of patients a hospital sees. The end.

  6. Garthicus

    My wife had an emergency C section in Toronto with our first kid and stayed in hospital for a week. The food made me envious of my Burger King. We had a baby this summer in Dublin and I brought take out to her. It was horrendous. Coupled with the fact she’s celiac, she often received a solo boiled egg and a cup of tea for a meal as they didn’t know how to deal with it here.

  7. Rosie

    I visited my friend in hospital who suffers from cholitis and what food she can and can’t eat is an essential part of her recovery. The woman in the bed opposite was an overweight lady who is also diabetic. They were both served jelly & ice cream for desert! Does anybody ever look at the big picture?

  8. Jtee

    They usually give a dinner type meal with meat and veg in the daytime and then a tea type dinner which would be lighter in the evening. I’m guessing that was a tea time supper. I’ve stayed in Vincent’s and had no issue with the food.

  9. andyourpointiswhatexactly

    This reminds me: I’m going to get a sausage roll in Lolly & Cooks at lunch. They’re delicious.

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