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A while back, I had the misfortune of spending about 10 days in the hospital. The institution was Herman Hospital in Houston, Texas, with a Level 1 Trauma center and supposedly a top rated orthopedics unit.
The food was crap. It would be delivered, a couple of hours late, and had the nutritional value of McDonalds. I recall receiving a philly cheese steak, all sorts of unpalatable "jello cups", and often fried/breaded chicken. There would be far too many refined carbs, nothing was fresh, and very little protein.
The low protein was what really upset me...here I was, trying to recover from a serious injury, and my body is supposed to repair itself by tearing down my existing muscles? That's stupid.
On top of that, my GI slowed to a crawl from all the narcotics, so some frakkin fiber would have really helped. Was there shredded wheat? No-O, tasteless gruel in for breakfast instead. (arriving at about 10am)
Further, sodium levels, ect were way out of whack. Naturally, I happened to have my birthday in the hospital...and they auto-delivered a chocolate frosted birthday cake, a solid pound of refined sugar and trans-fats. Gee, thanks...that really helps. No wonder acutely ill inpatients get so frakkin fat.
So guess what my bill was...
$100,000. $80k of that was the hospital, $20k the two surgeons who worked on me.
About $50,000 was paid by my insurance. Over 10 days, that means the hospital had about $4000 a day. They could have flown in Gordan Ramsey to cook me and 10 other patients meals and not significantly increased the bill.
I mean, they could have catered in Olive Garden for no more than $30 a day.
So it's not JUST that the food was crap. It was flat out dangerously poor nutrition! And for more money per day than the most expensive resort in the world!
What sort of "economics" causes this kind of craziness?
The food was crap. It would be delivered, a couple of hours late, and had the nutritional value of McDonalds. I recall receiving a philly cheese steak, all sorts of unpalatable "jello cups", and often fried/breaded chicken. There would be far too many refined carbs, nothing was fresh, and very little protein.
The low protein was what really upset me...here I was, trying to recover from a serious injury, and my body is supposed to repair itself by tearing down my existing muscles? That's stupid.
On top of that, my GI slowed to a crawl from all the narcotics, so some frakkin fiber would have really helped. Was there shredded wheat? No-O, tasteless gruel in for breakfast instead. (arriving at about 10am)
Further, sodium levels, ect were way out of whack. Naturally, I happened to have my birthday in the hospital...and they auto-delivered a chocolate frosted birthday cake, a solid pound of refined sugar and trans-fats. Gee, thanks...that really helps. No wonder acutely ill inpatients get so frakkin fat.
So guess what my bill was...
$100,000. $80k of that was the hospital, $20k the two surgeons who worked on me.
About $50,000 was paid by my insurance. Over 10 days, that means the hospital had about $4000 a day. They could have flown in Gordan Ramsey to cook me and 10 other patients meals and not significantly increased the bill.
I mean, they could have catered in Olive Garden for no more than $30 a day.
So it's not JUST that the food was crap. It was flat out dangerously poor nutrition! And for more money per day than the most expensive resort in the world!
What sort of "economics" causes this kind of craziness?