Despite repeated calls from numerous medical experts and various health intellectuals hospitals across the UK continue to serve junk foods to sick people. As recently as last year Doctors themselves meeting at the BMA made the strongest recommendation that all hospitals should stop this practice completely because it was exacerbating almost every medical problem they faced. (see link below)
Some 10 years ago I had a personal experience of this situation while visiting my Mother in the cardiac ward of Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham. She was in her 70's and was having a angioplasty. While there I observed a morbidly obese lady only in her early 30's in the next bed. She was being given Fish and Chips and apple tart with custard at evening meal time-even though she had just had a heart attack and her poor diet had obviously been a major contribution to this event!
Outraged at this terrible state of affairs I wrote a letter the very same day directly to Tony Blair (who was then PM) to offer my assistance to NHS Managers-free of charge-for one full day each month for 6 months to help set up some healthy eating guidelines as optimum nutrition for recovering patients. His secretary replied with quote; Mr Blair was; 'too busy' to accept my offer. You can read both letters for yourself below.
After the initial reply from Downing Street and despite my many further attempts to get hold of someone responsible for the relevant systems or procedures pertaining to this issue,, no one ever contacted me again. Isn't it appalling that in all the time since this experience nothing seems to have changed and the problem still has not been addressed? This situation is controlled by our politicians-who we elect to protect us on all levels. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has offered help but let's just use me as a for instance;
A published Health Author, offering free help and assistance and never even being contacted again on the subject surely is a dereliction of some sort by the then government. Worse still, it continues to this day and the statistics have grown exponentially! We all deserve better?
Some hospitals in the US last year began kicking out Fast Food Vendors (We know who they are) from their premises because their 'foods' were, unnatural, contained chemicals and sent out the wrong message to patients. Again, the link to this report is below.
You could say of course, "This is nothing to do with you Blakeman!" and you'd be right to a degree but who is taking responsibility then because Blair certainly wasn't when he was in power. I went straight to the top with my concerns and didn't even get my correspondence passed on to the Health Minister or whoever it concerned.
Maybe it was just me personally that they didn't want to listen to but guess what? I still lecture Worldwide in Medical Schools, Universities and Colleges on obesity and I do so in a paid capacity so their must be some value to what I know. The difference is that the people attending these events want to be educated on nutrition and medicine. I know this is not the worst crime that Blair has been blamed for but it's not the least either, not by a long way as preventable obesity related illness's continue to rise and threaten to bankrupt the NHS with their billions in costs to treat.
You really couldn't make it up.
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/blog/kicking-mcdonalds-out-hospital-food