The Times Herald from Port Huron, Michigan • Page 29

i i i What's in A- Save with Sfef Kwy ho stars? Tf Supermarket Shopper li Horoscope), Pago 2D rf 1 The marriage game Potpourri, Pago 3D LJ ') PORT HURON, MICH. rt Sunday April 26. 1981 I -V 1 -rpWiT r' i uff. Jt i I I I I. II if ij KM III.

III! mm, HI The Tlme Herald Greg Jenson A tk ThoTimes Herald Greg Jenson PEARS ANYONE? Minnie Bates, a worker in the Mercy Hospital kitchen, dishes up pears at lunch time. PREPARING LUNCH Lucille Lasky, a cook at Mercy Hospital, prepares chicken 77 SOT Hmpii(oik puff No need to call doctor after a patient's meal It was with some misgivings that I agreed to sample a typical patient lunch at Mercy Hospital. I knew all the unsavory legends about hospital food. But since I never have been a Eatient in a ospital, all my information came second-hand. I also wondered if I was being set up when Mary Deneweth, the hospital's pub By JIM KETCHUM Times Herald Reporter Dining at your friendly neighborhood hospital may not be the greatest gastronomical treat of your life.

Then again, it's not Al's Greasy Spoon either. Area hospitals are making an effort to please the persnickity palates of patients whose appetites probably need all the pepping up they can get. Hospital cooks prepare food using the same conventional methods that good cooks traditionally have used. The operation may be larger than what went on in your mother's kitchen, but the aroma and, for the most part, the taste are the same. "One of our biggest jobs is to try to make the food as tasty and attractive as possible," said Mary Deneweth, vice president for public relations at Mercy Hospital.

Hospital menus vary from day to day, generally running in cycles of eight days to three weeks. Dale Goulette, dietary super-Visor at Mercy Hospital, said the legend that hospital food is lousy drose partially because hospitals feed sick people. Goulette said: "When you're sick, food isn't going to taste very good. Medications can alter your taste enough to make everything seem bad." But that doesn't mean hospitals don't take patient complaints seriously. Dietitians send patients survey sheets seeking comments on what they liked and didn't like about the food.

Some hospitals check with patients even after they've returned home. The major com- Flaint at area hospitals is that hot ood winds up cold before, it reaches the patient. Richard Dietiker, food service director at Port Huron Hospital, said it abandoned a traditional serving cart with hot and cold compartments in favor of cabinets that preheat dishes and trays before food goes on them. The heated trays then go into insulated carts and are to patient rooms. The food is placed on plates using an assembly line method that gets a meal prepared faster and on its way sooner, he said.

Port Huron Hospital also provides special meals to children between 2 and 14 years old. "We include things like hot dogs, hamburgers, spaghetti and even peanut butter and jelly sandwiches," Dietiker said. "Of course we like to have the parents on hand when the child makes the selections." River District Hospital, East Mamie Bennatts, head dietitian at McKenzie Memorial Hospital, Sandusky, said the hospital plans to stick with conventional cooking methods including some real home cooking. "We make most of our soup stocks, our sauces and salad dressings from scratch," Bennatts said. The hospital serves from 20 to 25 meals a day.

Bennatts said a meal's eye appeal can be as important as its taste. "If you get a blah-looking tray, it tends to make the whole meal bad," she said. it. i Hospital kitchens reveal few surprises. Each is geared to icrank out a lot of meals in as little time as possible.

i In Port Huron Hospital, more than 1,400 meals a day are prepared, while Mercy Hospital prepares about 270 a day. Dietiker said hot food is prepared no more than two hours before it's served. Salads and side dishes are prepared about ,2 hours before mealtime. 1 It takes 55 full- and part-time employees 15 Vz hours a day to fix the three meals, Dietiker said. Mercy Hospital uses 24 employees for the job.

River District Hospital has 14 workers in its kitchen, and McKenzie uses nine full- and part-time workers. China Township, likes to help new parents celebrate the arrival of their offspring by offering a special going-home dinner featuring a selection of steak, shrimp or cornish hen, along with a favorite wine, said Fay Edgette, dietary director. "When there's a birthday, we five the patient a birthday cake," Idgette said. "It helps make a hospital stay a little nicer." The hospitals have shied away from convenience foods and a method of preparation known as flash-freezing. It allows institutions to prepare food in large quantities, then" quick-freeze it and thaw it later in a microwave oven.

"We've looked at cook-and-freeze systems, but the disadvantages outweigh the advantages," Dietiker said. "We think it actually costs more because you need more quality control. You need more supervision. You need to be more exact. We've found it really doesn't work," he said.

River District serves about 150 meals a day using conventional cooking methods. "We try to provide the kinds of i food people from around here are used to eating. We have a lot of older patients who like the basic; meat and potatoes," Edgette said. three dressings, shrimp salad with egg garnish, wax beans or cabbage, ice cream and one of 10 beverages. This can't be hospital food, I thought.

If it was, I wondered what they would do to it to make it look and taste unrecognizable. As it turned out, I shouldn't have worried. The food was good. True, it wasn't the Waldorf Astoria. But it was good.

The pork chop was moist, the potatoes done, the salad and the roll fresh. The chocolate cake didn't even stick to the roof of my mouth. Deneweth assured me that this, indeed, is typical of what patients receive every day. "Patients can special order extra quantities of something they particularly like. We're not in the short-order business, but if we can accommodate our patients, we'll certainly try," she said.

So if you ever happen to be a patient in Mercy Hospital, be sure to try the chocolate layer cake. And tell them I sent you. Jim Ketchum lic relations officer, called a day ahead to take my order. The selections didn't sound like anything a hospital would offer. I chose a baked pork chop, au gratin potatoes, a Waldorf salad, chilled apple juice, a dinner roll with butter, milk and chocolate layer cake.

Other menu choices included soup, tossed salad with one of Therapist' brings empathy, hope mens General Hospital. She has been a licensed I practical nurse for the past 17 and a staff member at niver District since 1977. As part of her job, she also visits patients in John F. Brown WORKING WORLD LEXINGTON After an ostomy operation in 1972, Donna Ruth Hoffman was told that she didn't fit in the world anymore. The 46-year-old licensed practical nurse lost her job.

She nearly lost her sanity. But the grit of this courageous woman spurred her on. She wouldn't quit. She didn't crawl into a hole, as some had hoped she would. She suffered through tremendous depression and but she battled back.

Today, Hoffman continues her fight against pre- tudice and ignorance as a staff member at River Mstrict Hospital, East China Township. She is a enterostomal therapist, traveling to hospitals, clinics and homes throughout the Blue Water Area assisting ostomates. A I An ostomy is a surgically created openine in the hospitals in Port Huron, Sandusky, Deckerville, Harbor Beach and Bad Axe once a week. She works with about 350 patients a year. Hoffman said, "Ostomy care service is a relatively new field which has only been really recognized since the 1960s.

It's a surgery that brings on tremendous emotional stress. Patients have problems with leakage, odor and skin." The nurse listed the three types of Surgery involved: colostomy, which diverts body wastes from the large bowel to outside the abdominal wall; ileostomy, which diverts body wastes from the small intestine; and urostomy, which diverts the urine. "I had an ileostomy operation in 1972. I was considered the victim of the closet operation. It was a huth-hush thing.

People didn't want to talk about it. "I was called handicapped, an insurance risk. I was told I was socially unaccetable. I thought it was the end of the world for me. I wanted to die." Hoffman said Lee Draper, of Marwood Manor, Port Huron, was the only person who would hire her after her operation.

I Hoffman, they believe it's the end of the world. "Donna Hoffman is helping to show them that it isn't the end of the world. Life doesn't have to stop with this type of problem: Donna is living proof." Hoffman, a 5-foot, 3-inch, hazel-eyed brunette, was visiting with a patient at the hospital. She wore a white hospital Jacket, a cream-colored tur-tleneck, dark blue slacks and white shoes. A black-and-red patch on her jacket read Enterostomal Therapy.

Her demeanor was comforting. The smile on the patient's face seem to indicate that Hoffman's compassion had helped to ease his pain. Hoffman has worked in hospitals and nursing homes for nearly 30 years. She started her nurs-In cat-Mr In 105.1 as a ward clerk at Mount Clc abdomen that diverts body waste. A pouch is worn on the abdomen to collect the drainage and contain the odor.

Ann Haven, R.N., director of nursing at River District, said Hoffman has great feeling for the patients she works with. Haven said, "Donna Hoffman is one of those rare people who dare to care. Her desire to help others comes from a love in her heart. To fully understand this dedicated nurse, one only has to talk to her. "She has empathy for the people she works with because she's oeen there just like they have.

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