Making a meal of it
On Wednesday January 12 I attended a meeting in the Centre at Braidwood Hospital to hear about the transition of the above services to what is called the non-Goverment Sector. It was called by an officer in Southern NSW Local Health Service District. The services under review were provision of meals and domestic assistance and personal care.
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That part of the agenda which dealt with the meals was well explained by several members of Catholic Care, and organisation based in Canberra which has apparently been appointed to take over our local Meals on Wheels service. I am currently a Meals on Wheels client, living just outside Braidwood.
Catholic Care’s part in the meals re-organisation was dealt with in detail by a group of cheerful ladies who are obviously well experienced. The Braidwood Hospital kitchen is no longer to be allowed to provide this service, despite its many years of experience. Meals are to be imported deep-frozen from Wagga Wagga and kept in local freezers, to be thawed on demand. Samples and menus were handed round at the meeting. I have no quarrel with the Catholic Care staff, who did their part of the job well.
What worries me is the background implication. I went with a short list of questions about aspects of this, but as far as I could tell there was nobody present at the meeting who was competent to answer them. I was expecting the person from the Southern NSW Local Health District to be present, or a duly accredited representative.
I have had extensive experience in local hospitals as a very ill in-patient and two periods of being on meals on wheels during my periods of home rehab. There is in mu view absolutely nothing in common between deep-frozen food from a remote source and locally sourced food prepared by genuine country cooks. During my long period in both Canberra Hospital and Goulburn Base I was clawing the walls to be let out. To arrive back in Braidwood Hospital was an immense relief. It is a matter of patient moral, and this applies as much to out-patients as to in-patients.
Other points. We, the “Customer”, have all been asked to sign a form releasing details about our current care requirements to Catholic Care. I would be so stupid if I did this, or at least until I have been given much more detail about the methods of operation of this new dispensation. Some of the phraseology of the covering letter is curious: it refers to our section of medical care as being “Non-Core.” Where have I heard this before and what are the implications?
The meeting I attended was not open to the public who were in fact turned away at the door. Why?
Napoleon said that an army marches on its stomach. So do hospital patients, in-hospital or out. Or perhaps the term was meant to be taken literally and we, the clients, are all gutless?
Anthony Shepherd, Braidwood