Eating the patients' food?

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?

If I NEVER see Jell-O again it will be too soon. Ditto pudding. Our ER was so busy that we would beg to cops to bring us some food. Donuts anyone? LOL

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Specializes in ER.

The food is usually gross so no. I will eat crackers and peanut butter sometimes. Sometimes cheese sticks but usually the doctors will raid their lounge for that.

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Specializes in Psych, Peds, Education, Infection Control.
Been a nurse too long. I thought you said a "c-dif" bar.

:roflmao::roflmao::roflmao::roflmao:

I don't care WHAT your opinion on food gleaned from work is...NEVER eat the C-Diff Bar!

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Specializes in NICU/Mother-Baby/Peds/Mgmt.

I like to think I'm helping to pay back the food I've eaten by buying popsicles for the peds floor I worked on (and knowing the ED occasionally borrowed some), offering parents coffee that I and other nurses bought, as well as offering parents treats that other patient's families brought us (especially on night shift).

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Out of the galley I probably will have maybe a peanut butter and one or two graham crackers every couple of weeks and I have no guilt about it. I don't think of it as stealing. Technically I am suppose to get 2 15 minute paid breaks if the day allows for it. Somehow the day never allows for it so I don't begrudge myself what I take. I think it is common knowledge that staff take and as long as it isn't excessive it is fine.

I also hate waste and will totally take patient food that is being tossed. One time a doctor made a patient NPO for a 4 hr stressf test right before their breakfast arrived. Of course I had that tray. I also don't have qualms about snagging something sealed from them tray when the patient is done. We have such a wasteful culture and it sucks to see.

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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.

But no manager I know has a problem with staff using a bandaid if they need it. Or making a few copies at work or using the fax machine for personal use. Heck, if we have a headache we call pharmacy and they have other send us a bottle of ibuprofen for the unit or some individual pills.

If you are overly restrictive with staff there will be resentment. And if staff abuses these privileges it will be taken away.

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Maybe it's bad of me but it always makes me laugh a little but the aide was so morbidly obese but I always wondered how you can get that fat as a CNA, running around constantly chasing call lights, but apparently that's how. :yes:

This comment.....wow.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Academics.

Four 4-oz cups of cranberry juice over a cup of ice was my dehydration elixir at around 3 p.m. on a 12-hour shift.

No guilt. At all.

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

I've been known to raid the surgeon's lounge when working on call. On call means no meal break. If I finish one emergency and have 2 minutes before the next one is rolling up from the ER or down from the OR, you bet I'm gonna swipe crackers and peanut butter! And if the surgeon's lounge was empty, yep, I hit up the stash in PACU. (They have the Lorna Doones)

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I'm the weirdo who doesn't like turkey. I can't stand Thanksgiving turkey, either. If the apocalypse happens and all that is left to eat is turkey of course I would eat turkey but that is about it.

At my facility they are not as strict about crackers and snacks but that lunches are prepared by a gourmet catering company and if you're caught with one it is a write-up and therefore fireable offense.

If they don't make sure you get a meal break, and still want to fire you over it, get a lawyer and sue the living daylights out of them. And report them to the Dept. of Labor for stealing your labor/enslaving you by making you work for free.

I am really not surprised but am horrified by the stuff I've been reading tonight about how nurses, professional nurses who deserve decent regard and decent working conditions, are being treated (this thread and the one about Assisted Living Nightmare).

People, what is wrong with us that we allow ourselves to be treated like this? It is our fault for buying into the bullying and lies. STAND UP FOR YOURSELVES and stop expecting someone else to do it.

Cesar Chavez HUELGA (means "strike").

When will YOU say that enough is enough? If it helps you feel OK about it, think of it as standing up for your patients.

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:roflmao:

Uh, you do NOT want to adulterate the food with medications. You could seriously injure someone and you do NOT want to do that.

The hot sauce is another thing. I guess.

Just wondering - do you guys not carry something with you from home that you can wolf down on the run? Technically, it's stealing to grab some facility-provided snacks but they are stealing your meal break time and your health and well-being. Where do you draw the line? Spirit of the law vs. the letter of it and all that.

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This might be off topic but this thread reminds me of a situation at the hospital where I previously worked. Any nurse who did a double shift was given a meal coupon to use in the hospital cafeteria. Some of the nurses who routinely pulled doubles would save up their meal tickets and treat their kids to pizza night in the hospital cafeteria.

The Pumps-and-Pearls crowd got wind of this and stopped giving the meal tickets because they were being "abused". They didn't stop to think that those double shifts saved them a pile of money on agency staff and translated to a lot of meals the nurses weren't having with their families. If their idea of a family night out is pizza in the hospital cafeteria, how do you begrudge them? I thought it was the epitome of pettiness from the people who keep bankers' hours.

What did they ( The P and P crowd, great title) say when you mentioned this to them?

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