Hospital breakfasts

Bigapetite

It took a bit of bribery by letting her take home a portion of the tails but for 2 or 3 nights in a row, we ate like kings.
Since neither of us suffered from anything that would put us on a restricted diet, (me from broken bones, he from burns) We even had a night nurse mix up drinks and sneak them into the hospital in a 2 liter 7 up bottle.

 
Man! Those night nurses rock, eh? As a kid I had one bring me Italian Ice at 2am. So awesome.
 
I've been in the hospital a number of times, but usually I'm so hungry that I eat every dang thing they bring me. Even the scrunched-up soggy thing under the lid that was once toast but is now steamed and anything but flat.  Rarely has the food been so bad I wouldn't eat it. Apart from the beef broth when I was on clear liquids once. Forget it. Chicken I could do, but the beef broth was the pits.
 
Two funny stories, though. I had a boyfriend who had his leg amputated at Bethesda Naval Hospital in, oh, about 1990.  I ate breakfast in the cafeteria with his parents, and the best thing I could say about the scrambled eggs was that they were certainly not powdered, but made from actual fresh eggs. I can say this, because they still had the shells in them. Just the whole egg, thrown in and scrambled, shell and all.
 
The last time I was in was when my now 5-year-old son was born at Carroll County General in 2003. The food was just fine, but I remember one morning having ordered tea with breakfast. Breakfast came with everything one could want, a piping hot carafe of water, sugar, sugar substitute, milk, and even half-and-half.  However . . . no teabag. 

Hospital Food has come a long way. You can now order almost anything you want,  anytime you want it. The Hospital knows they need to do whatever it has to, in order for you to pick them again. Its like anyother business, if you falter, someone else will be at the top of their game, and take your business away........Bill 

Paul: As you know, I'm okay and Jan & I will see y'all next weekend!

Twinwillow: No, I wasn't too worried about retribution. My wife is a Sr. VP there and I was treated quite well. But I was writing on a borrowed computer (hers), a notebook w/ a 13" monitor and tiny keyboard, and it was very difficult to use. Add that to some pretty serious drugs and it made writing anything pretty hard work, though entertaining for any spectators!

I did have a friend who would bring me care packages on request.

i sppent 3 days in kettering hosp. in dayton for bladder cancer.  the menu is very pretencious.  everything from omlettes to burritos for breakfst. like 8 choices. ruebens, burgers, pizza, salads for lunch.  chicken florentine with ceasr slad for dinner
cheesecake for dessert.
i was  in such misery with bladder spasms from the catheter i didnt eat much more then the desert plus soup.
it seemed very good tho.
britt

Last February, I slipped on the ice at home and broke my hip and wrist, and this meant a 19-day stay at Saint Margaret Mercy Hospital in Hammond IN. The staff there couldn't have been nicer, but the food....uggghh! Just thinking about it makes my stomach turn upside down. The worst, most INEDIBLE swill I've ever put in my mouth! Horrible, awful, disgusting... every day I dreaded mealtimes. Food was so bad that I found myself wishing that someone would bring me a Big Mac - now that's bad!

Never had a good breakfast or meal in a hospital room, but there are a couple of local hospitals with excellent cafeterias and have had great breakfasts and lunches there.  Hard to believe, but true. 

Many years ago, (early 1960's) I was a student nurse at Riley Hospital in Indianapolis. Their cafeteria was so good many outsiders came just to eat. You had your choice of breakfast meats, eggs, juice, pastries, cereal, etc. and it was all good. A small hospital near where I live now, bakes their own fresh bread daily. It is wonderful

My nephew was in Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in New Brunswick Nj a couple of months ago and they have quite a menu. You actually peruse the menu and then pick up the phone and order just like room service!! you can order as much as you want when you want as long as its in the parameters of your particular diet!! it was cool!! if you are hungry you can order a pizza at 2 in the afternoon. The food he tells me was really good!!

Jennie


 
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Two funny stories, though. I had a boyfriend who had his leg amputated at Bethesda Naval Hospital in, oh, about 1990.  
 

????lololol just kind of struck me as funny!!

Yes, it was a voluntary amputation, too, which makes it even stranger.
 
Basically, when he was 6 he got a cancerous growth behind his kneecap. They stopped it with radiation (which caused the growth plate in that leg to stop growing, so that leg was always much shorter than the other hand he had a special shoe with a 4" sole). However, 10 years later he got a radiation induced cancer on the kneecap itself, and had to have the kneecap removed. A year later, he was in agony and went back for more surgery, and they discovered that his kneecap was attempting to spontaneously regenerate. Apparently this is more common in children than adults, but then his growth plate was frozen at childhood . . . who knows? Anyway, he elected not to have to go in for surgery every Christmas season for the rest of his life and have his kneecap removed again. So he had them amputate it instead. Glad ya asked? lol

BillyB


Hospital Food has come a long way. You can now order almost anything you want,  anytime you want it. The Hospital knows they need to do whatever it has to, in order for you to pick them again. Its like anyother business, if you falter, someone else will be at the top of their game, and take your business away........Bill 

That's partly it.  There is also now an initiaive that hospital patient satisfaction scores are reported publicy by the government.  You have to report them to get the full payment allowed by Medicare.  In the future they will actually use those scores plus other clincial ones to rank hospitals and pay more to the best ones.  So anything that can be done to push patients into ranking the hospital higher is being done.  And beleive it or not, food is always a big driver of satisfaction.

year and half ago i surviverd a an abdominal aortic anuerism---8 % survival rate--needless to say --i spent a long time in Tulsa's St Francis hospital---after what seemed like 2 weeks on an IV i got to eat something--i can honestly say that the orange jello they brought me was the best tasting thing i ever put in my mouth!!!  and the food there was better TASTING then i expected but i was amazed at how UNHEALTHY the diet they put me on was!! Fried foods--boiled to death vegies---but a great burger!  then i was recently in Muskogee Regional Medical Center for a week--some of the worst breakfasts i ever had---dry plain "Almost" bagels are NOT the most appetizing thing to start the day with!!!

I spent 5 days in our local community hospital this past November, and the food was excellent.The breakfasts, especially.Eggs were fresh, bagels pretty good, fresh fruit, etc.Their version of an egg mcmuffin was awesome....