Eating the patients' food?

Nurses General Nursing

Published

  1. Do you eat the patients' food/snacks supplied by the facility?

    • 12
      No, never...it's stealing
    • 12
      No, but I know a lot of people who do
    • 47
      Sometimes I eat crackers, if I'm feeling sick because I'm starving
    • 12
      Yes, I do, and I feel guilty about it sometimes
    • 61
      Yes I do and I don't care. I'm working hard and need food to keep going

143 members have participated

What do you think about staff, family members of patients, and/or anyone else other than patients, eating the snacks in the nutrition room designated for patients? Have you ever done it or seen anyone else? Do you think it's stealing, if your facility doesn't offer them to you, patient's families, etc. Do you think staff should be able to have them if their not able to take a formal lunch break?

Specializes in Critical Care.
Anything that has gone into a patient's room is repulsive to me. If dirty trays have gone back to the cart, then anything on the cart is radioactive. A new tray for a discharged or newly NPO patient is fair game, though. However, I usually can find a patient's family member or extra hungry patient who will take it.

I ALWAYS have my own lunch and snacks, though. Always.

I always bring my own food as well, although I generally don't have time to actually eat it until after my shift is over. What I eat during my shift generally consists of whatever I can inhale while my patient's water cup is filling up. If you've found a position where you can actually take a break to eat then that's great, but that's not the reality many nurses live in.

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A follow up question to the OP question:

Anybody ever get in trouble, or reprimanded, for eating hospital food?

Well, my google search didn't turn up anything at all. This is a bit off topic, but I did come across a few articles about facilities outsourcing the dietary department due to budget constraints regarding patient food. One article mentioned how out of the money paid out for on-sight dietary services, 70% went to pay dietary employee salaries, and 30% went toward the actual food. I don't know how accurate that is...seems a little off? But, if it's accurate, it's understandable why that department gets outsourced, though it's frustrating and inconvenient at times. Here's an older article about it. It's a short one.

Hospitals outsource services to save money | FierceHealthcare

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As I read many comments about not being able to eat at work, it made me think of a joke I saw on facebook some time ago.

Nurse's diet

Breakfast: 0 calories

Lunch: 0 calories

Dinner (after getting off work) 82,500 calories

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Pediatric Float, PICU, NICU.

I'd like to think I don't eat the patient's food, but rather the hospital's food....

I have morals of course. The rules are I would never eat something out of a patient's room and I would never eat something that the patient/famil had planned on eating. But working night shift, every night I go in to our nutrition room and there is a PILE of snacks, PB&J sandwiches, veggie w/dip cups, fruit cups, etc that are put out to be thrown away because their time is up. I have no guilt eating any of those on a busy night.

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Anything that has gone into a patient's room is repulsive to me. If dirty trays have gone back to the cart, then anything on the cart is radioactive. A new tray for a discharged or newly NPO patient is fair game, though. However, I usually can find a patient's family member or extra hungry patient who will take it.

I ALWAYS have my own lunch and snacks, though. Always.

^ This. No way I'd eat something left over or from a pt's room. Gross:barf02:

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Specializes in M/S, LTC, Corrections, PDN & drug rehab.

Unless it is private, marked food for a patient why should I feel guilty for eating jello/graham crackers/etc?

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Unless it is private, marked food for a patient why should I feel guilty for eating jello/graham crackers/etc?

Because it doesn't belong to you. No different from making a copy on the copy machine for yourself, using a bandaid, or taking home the MRI machine,

Well, maybe different in scale, but not in principle.

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Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care.
A follow up question to the OP question:

Anybody ever get in trouble, or reprimanded, for eating hospital food?

Not reprimanded exactly, but our unit stopped stocking turkey sandwiches, jello, ice cream, etc. due to the staff eating the food. We were relegated to only crackers and about two cans of soda.

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Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care.
Because it doesn't belong to you. No different from making a copy on the copy machine for yourself, using a bandaid, or taking home the MRI machine,

Well, maybe different in scale, but not in principle.

Oh crap, I don't feel back about those things. Well, I would feel back about the MRI machine one, but it wouldn't fit in my car anyway.

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Specializes in ER.

Reprimanded about the food...never. I even openly stated that if I sweat it out at work, I will replenish at work, when coworkers snarked about me drinking the unit's soda. But when the hospital switched to those little half Kleenexes instead of standard size, I said to the DON we just end up using twice as many, at least I do. She replied that I shouldn't be using hospital Kleenex.

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Specializes in Critical care, Trauma.
Reprimanded about the food...never. I even openly stated that if I sweat it out at work, I will replenish at work, when coworkers snarked about me drinking the unit's soda. But when the hospital switched to those little half Kleenexes instead of standard size, I said to the DON we just end up using twice as many, at least I do. She replied that I shouldn't be using hospital Kleenex.

So you're supposed to bring in your own kleenex? What about paper towels and toilet paper? :sarcastic:

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Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.
So you're supposed to bring in your own kleenex? What about paper towels and toilet paper? :sarcastic:

Exactly. If I get majorly injured at work they might end up paying for my MRI, or at least some sick time. By the same token, if I cut myself while working for them, they can front me a damn bandaid. If I have a splitting headache from not getting a meal break, they can spot me some crackers and an Advil.

I don't take things home from the hospital to use. But while I'm there, deferring my own needs to theirs, I think it's in their best interest if I can blow my nose, cover my cut and alleviate my splitting headache.

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