Click here if you hate hospital food
By Carol Martin
Link: SooToday.com

A very special Valentine's dinner was served at last night's Sault Area Hospital board meeting.

It consisted of Canada Food Guide apportioned servings of six entrees including meatloaf, lasagna, chicken or swedish meatballs.

Ron Gagnon, the hospital's interim president and chief executive officer and senior vice president is shown getting ready to dig in to a plate of meat lasagna with mashed potatoes and gravy and julienne carrots.

SAH board members were treated to a sampling of the new and improved hospital food that will go live on Wednesday February 21 at SAH.

Thomas Holzschuder, vice president of business development for Burlodge Canada Ltd., is seen delivering one of the new trays to Gagnon.

The side dishes included choices such as California mixed vegetables, julienne carrots and baby roast potatoes.

"Right now we have people from Burlodge on site training our staff on how to use the carts and other equipment," Marie Paluzzi, the hospital's director of clinical support services, told the board. "We're thrilled to have them here and very pleased with the quality of service we are receiving from Burlodge."

A lot of patients staying at Sault Area Hospital have been less than impressed recently with the taste, temperature, texture and variety of food served.

Paluzzi told the board that good nutrition is vital to speedy recovery from illness, injury or surgery.

And patients won't be getting the nutrition they need if they don't eat the food because they don't like it.

Staff at the hospital have been trying different things since 2003, without a lot of success.

The problem, said Paluzzi, was the meal distribution system.

"Patients commented that foods that were supposed to be hot were cold and foods that were supposed to be cold were warm," she said. "Many complained about condensation and puddles from it ruining the texture of the food."

So SAH put out a tender for a new meal distribution system and Burlodge Canada Ltd. was the successful bidder.

Burlodge Canada Ltd. is an international company with Italian roots.

It has manufacturing facilities in Italy and supplies equipment, and supports clients in health care (acute, LTC, rehabilitation and psychiatric) facilities, corrections, retail, educational and universities, day-care centres and large food production centres all over the world.

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