Festive feasting at the hospital

Before the sun creeps over the roof of North York General Hospital (NYGH), kitchen staff can be found checking the freshness of food, slicing and dicing, ensuring the quality of each meal, inspecting kitchen equipment for cleanliness, and monitoring sanitation policies — all in preparation for another action-packed day.

More than 1,000 meals are prepped and delivered each day to serve 420 inpatients their breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Now imagine when the holidays hit. 

The diverse population that NYGH serves is recognized over the holiday season. With feedback from North York General's multicultural food services staff, menus are created for special occasions whether that be Christmas, Chinese New Year, Diwali, Passover, or Ramadan to name a few. “Does it make sense? Do we like it? Should we refresh it or try something different?” are all questions that Elizabeth Wallis, Director of Food Services at North York General and her team ask themselves. 

Although the hospital is not the first place someone would like to spend their holidays, patients and their families along with staff, physicians and volunteers make the best of every situation and celebrate as if they were a family. 

A patient receives a meal
Dietetic Attendant Elsie Peters delivers a patient her meal.

“Spending time at the hospital during the holidays is not ideal, but our staff want to make it as special as possible for patients. The menus are developed by the Food Services team to ensure they meet the needs of the patients,” says Elizabeth. 

Of course, turkey dinner complete with all the fixings is the holiday meal for Christmas day. Festive napkins and placements will be positioned on the food trays with care, holiday desserts are added and the Food Services team deliver to the patients often dressed in festive clothing and reindeer antlers. 

“On a daily basis we try to give the best experience that we can, and the holidays are no exception to that,” says Elizabeth. 

Elizabeth recalls a time when she received a request from a Jewish family to use a different kosher meal provider because that's what their loved one was used to. Of course, the request was made — but Elizabeth decided to look more closely at how the food was received within the community and made the decision to switch suppliers. 

“If an alternate is what the community is looking for then absolutely this is what we are going to provide for them. We can learn from each other."

This article first appeared in the December 2017-January 2018 issue of The Pulse.

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