It can be done. It requires an engaged and proactive medical administration with the resolve to do the right thing for the community.
Hospitals should be setting the example for the people. Best example equals best practice. New Zealand is a head of us on this one…again.
I regularly hear from patients that sugar and carbs and cake and fruit juice and biscuits must be alright because the hospital ‘gives it to me’.
There is so much evidence that they are not good yet the hospitals that I work in don’t have the gumption to tackle the issue. That equals more ill health and more personal and community cost. That’s so frustrating.
“Diet soft drinks, juices, flavoured water and smoothies will be removed from the shelves and hospital menus at Nelson and Wairau Hospitals in a move that is believed to be the first of its kind in New Zealand.
The crackdown on sugary drinks will see patients and visitors to Wairau Hospital, in Blenheim, choose between milk, water, tea and coffee.
An existing Nelson Marlborough District Health Board policy preventing the sale of sugar-sweetened beverages was extended to cover artificially-sweetened beverages, flavoured water, smoothies and juices at a health board meeting in Nelson on Tuesday.
Those drinks would no longer be served to patients or sold from cafes, shops and vending machines at Wairau Hospital and Nelson Hospital from May 1.
Nelson Marlborough was the first health board in New Zealand to introduce limits on sugary drinks.
The updated policy means no pre-packaged drinks containing sugar will be available on health board sites.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/…/groundbreaking-sugary-drinks-polic…
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