Mulago Hospital improves patients' diet

Sep 17, 2014

Uganda’s national referral health facility Mulago Hospital has made adjustments to the meals it serves its in-patients, with a special diet introduced.


By Violet Nabatanzi
 
KAMPALA - Uganda’s national referral health facility Mulago Hospital has made adjustments to the meals it serves its in-patients, with a special diet introduced.
 
Previously, up to 1,500 in-patients at the hospital were fed with plain porridge for breakfast and posho (maize meal) and beans for lunch and dinner. Nowadays, a new meal timetable features a much improved diet.
 
A protein-carbohydrate-rich breakfast of eggs and porridge (maize or soya) mixed with milk, and sometimes plain milk, is what patients now wake up to.
 
Later – for lunch and dinner – they eat beef, rice, peas, pasted groundnuts mixed with silver fish (mukene) and matooke (green bananas), depending on the day’s timetable.
 
 
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79-year-old Kanzio Kabondekyeya, a patient at Mulago, being served breakfast. PHOTO/Violet Nabatanzi
 

Peter Mbanjitale, the hospital’s senior catering officer told New Vision the improvement in the nutrition has excited patients and caretakers.
 
“[Previously], we used to serve lunch late because we thought that if we served patients at 1.00pm, then by 8.00pm they would be hungry. Due to the limited budget sometimes the patients would be given porridge for lunch.”
 
He said with the new meals – coupled with them being served in time – patients can now take their drugs promptly as recommended by medical personnel.
 
Patients, in the past, would refuse to take drugs on an empty stomach, he added.
 
Fred Ssevvure, a patient at the hospital, was lying in the plastic surgery ward on 3B-E with a head injury. He said he is happy that the health facility has improved the meals.
 
“Yesterday I was served with pasted groundnuts mixed with silver fish and matooke. Ever since I was admitted here, the hospital staff have been changing the meals.
 
 “There is a significant change compared to the past, the health workers treat us with care and are not rude,” he said.
 
 
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Accident victim Fred Ssevvure takes milk for breakfast. PHOTO/Violet Nabatanzi 
 

A caretaker who did not want to be named said the development is a “great achievement” for the hospital, later admitting that in case of sickness, she would not afford to buy milk, eggs and matooke for her sick child.
 
Amid these changes, there still lies a problem.
 
Mbanjintale spoke of how the catering department is faced with the problem of limited number of staff, and that with most of the few available ones nearing their retirement age, the department is using volunteers.

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