Tuesday 29 June 2010

Treat Prisoners Like This, And There’d Be A Riot…

…so why do people let them get away with treating patients and their families like it?

Health chiefs are to ban sugar in tea and coffee in hospitals because it poses a health risk.
Actually, we'd be better off if they WERE prisons. They'd probably be cleaner, for a start...
The NHS in Wales is to stop the sale of hot drinks containing sugar from vending machines.

Hospital bosses say they are being ordered to enforce the ban because sweetened tea and coffee offer no nutritional benefit and can have a detrimental effect on dental hygiene.
It's not up to the NHS whether visitors and outpatients take sugar. It's up to them.
Documents published by the Welsh Assembly recommend the sale of water and juice as alternatives.

They also encourage the availability of healthier snacks including seeds, dried fruit, sandwiches and low fat cakes.
They aren't enouraging 'the availability' of sugar, are they? Or does 'encouraging the availability of healthier snacks' really mean they are all banned too?
The Welsh Assembly said in a statement: 'Hospitals are visited by a very broad cross-section of society and, as such, the whole hospital environment should reflect the importance of healthy living.'
No, it should concentrate on killing far less of its patients than it currently does...

But as Leg-Iron predicts, until people stand up and say 'No more! This is not what we pay you to do!' they will probably keep doing this.

5 comments:

AntiCitizenOne said...

> sweetened tea and coffee offer no nutritional benefit

I'm sure diabetic people might know differently.

When I had a blood test and went very faint after (no food), they offered me a sweet coffee and sweet biscuit.

This is just pure neo-puritanism. Banning something because people enjoy it.

DerekP said...

People will start bringing in their own food and drink, and the hospital will lose that money. Then some NHS 'manager' will start another 'initiative' to fix (ban) this and get the 'ever-so-deserved' bonus.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the hospital where the managers don't have to go, C. diff competes with MRSA for the most patients killed.

Gibby Haynes said...

Seeds? People go to the vending machine to get a tasty snack, not eat bird food.

SadButMadLad said...

Sugar has loads of nutritional benefit. Anyway a food doesn't need to provide nutritional benefit to keep you alive.

Try this experiment. Eat food with no sugars at all (no carbs either) and see how long you last. Then try another experiment. Don't drink a drop of water and see how long you last. You'll probably last a lot longer with the food than the water. But water has no nutritional benefit whatsoever. However you die very quickly if you don't have it.

Basically they weren't forced to implement the ban. Someone who has a job to justify came up with the ban.

JuliaM said...

"This is just pure neo-puritanism. Banning something because people enjoy it."

Yup. And all wrapped up in a nice, benevolent 'it's for your own good!' wrapper.

"People will start bringing in their own food and drink..."

Most times I've visited someone in hospital, they have! No longer a few grapes, now edible, tasty food is sought.

"People go to the vending machine to get a tasty snack, not eat bird food."

Seeds seem to be the health nut's latest fad. Our coffee shop stocks loads of varieties. Never once seen anyone buy any.

"Someone who has a job to justify came up with the ban."

Indeed. There's another post to cut.