Big Job Of Providing For Hospital Patients

Chronicle (Levin), 18 May 1949, Page 7

Big Job Of Providing For Hospital Patients

Press Association)

(Per

may i/. Over 1700 tons of foodstuffs, 1,500,000 pints of milk, nearly 16,000 pints of eream and 61,000 dozen eggs, are required to feed the patients and staff in Auckland 's four main lxospitals. For a year the meal bill of these 25,000 in-patients and 2900 employees is £113,000. Ten substan'tial dairy farms with perhaps 1000 average produeing cows, could work full time to furnish the hospitals' requireinents in dairy pro ducts. They include nearly 50 tons o+' butter, nine tons of clieese, approximately 200,000 gallons of milk and 1900 gallons of cream. The fleet of lorries carrying these supplies to Grafton, Green Lane, Cornwall Park and Middlemore Hospitals could serve a provincial town. The same vast figures can be marshalled in assessing the hospitals' needs for other foodstuffs. The year's joints, entrees and soups absorb 265 tons ot meat. Tliousands oi' table birds make up the 1.31 tons of poultry and many full nets of schnapper would be needed to meet the demand for nearly 10 tons of iish. The supplementiug of the lish, meat and poultry in the hospital diet- nieans the buying of 230 tons pf putatoes and 100 tons of other vegetables. A sizeable share of the-city's wheal supphes is represented in nearly 500,000 pounds of bread, 90,0001b of flour and 35,0001b of oatmeal. The output of whoie orchards is represented in 227 tofas of fresh fruit. These stocks are augmented by another 96 tons of dried and tinned fruits. Proof that th.e New Zeaiander, fit or ill, is an inveterate tea drinker, is provided in the Hospital Board boverage statistics. Ten tons of tea used during Llie year ended March 31, was more tinui double the combined quantitv of eofl'ec, cocoa and similar liues. There is a liint, too, of the country's charucleristic sweet tooth in an annual order of 63 tons of sugar and 25 tons of jams, honey and preserves. The annual Hospital Board estimates show that it costs more to feed tlie patients and staff than it does to provide their medieines, anaeslhetirs, dressings, baiulages, surgical inslruments and equipniyut for treatment. This iigure amounts to £117,000 and last year it ineluded new and initiallv J oxpensive drugs like penicillin and streptonivcin. They alone represented | au outlav of tens of thousands of } pounds. j Admitted at the rate of 68 a day, | 25,000 in-patients entered Ihe four hos- 1 [)itals last year and another 225,000 out-patient treatments were given.