The quality of hospital food in Germany

Well I was shocked by this programme in a week long series about food. I am becoming converted to the idea of food made well. You are reading of someone who didnt give a toos about this when younger, and couldnt drive past a McDonalds without the hunger pangs - I now drive past with no regrets!

Seems the quality of hospital food in Britain is not brilliant. Until this programme was aired I'd never really given it a thought. Good food for a patient helps recovery, and means less drugs and shorter hospital staying time. Surely well cooked food is a basic right? Not accoirding to the Ministry of Health or food or whatever.its called in Britain, as they wouldn't comment.

Now let us come to Germany where I am convinced it isnt much better.

Here are my assessments of two hospitals of my acquaintance in Germany:

Taxisklinik - wife had a private room whilst in for birth of our two kids. I r
emember the food not exactly looking delicious. Wouldnt say it was bad
 - I ate bits of it when wife was full - but I wouldnt rave over it.

Schwabinger Krankenhaus:

My father in law was stuck in this place after an op on his heart. One of the most miserable places I have ever been in. His room looked old and he was seriously ill, with a 50:50 chance of survival. Now the food they brought him was simply not nice. He used to yell at them how bad it was, but they didnt seem to listen.

So for us expats, if we are unfortunate to have to use a hospital here in Bavaria, then which of the hospit
als has the tastiest and most nutritious food?

Jeremy, what in the heck in going on with the formatting of your post? Sorry to go off-topic, but I notice your posts are sometimes formatted weirdly, which makes them difficult to read (especially longer ones). So I can't help but ask if you're maybe poking at the 'return' button instead of letting the text wrap do its job.

The paracelsius clinic has totally nutritional and delicous food. Surprisingly the Alpha klinik while being quite good was not up to the standard of the paracelsius.

Its obvious to us that good nutrition is part of recovery but not to many hospital administratos.

It's a special feature added by EB otherwise called ***** JEREMY POSTING - PLEASE KEEP A SAFE DISTANCE *******

Makes it easier to spot the posts quickly.

Well, I was going to ask if jeremy was drinking in the middle of the day, but then I decided that wouldn't be nice.

Frau Georgia: thank you for pointing that out. It might be my browser Opera. I shall try to sort out that problem. Right off to Kindergarten.

Have a good day. Don't forget to eat your lunch.

No it wouldnt my dear. In fact Ihave severely cut down my intake. I spent a while drinking low alcohol but now drink alcohol free beer at night. The odd glühwein or wine glass does still sink well however.

I am almost living life like a person of Middle East origin!

Get back on topic. Mods edit the intervening posts and keep this on topic!

It depends, not just on the hospital factor, but also on the type of insurance you have..! :-)

The German friends that i have here, hate hospitals ...and keep complaining about the food..! Also, even if their bladder is full, they dont like to take a leak in the hospitals..! (stinkz)
Sometimes, they also complain that the nurse' are rude...!

People havin' private insurance enjoy the benefits of a cosy room for themselves and also they can order extra or special food..!

Ha! These mods are no match for Les Trois Mousquetaires when we are in full flight. Frankly I think we are the only thing keeping this thread alive.

The cosy room for yourself is only if you have added that option to your (private) insurance & paid for it. Its not for free I can tell you.

As for special food I question that. About 10 years ago I was in the Schlaflabor of a hospital on the East side of Hamburg and the bland food I got was same as the rest. The advantage was I got my appointment at the hospital within a couple of weeks...

Also I was at a klinik on Sunday (we hosted a conference there & ate in canteen). Food was nothing special but salad bar was reasonable.

Quatsch! Scogs was a private payer in the Schwabinger and the food they gave him was abysmal. Watery cream of cauliflower soup three times a week, soggy fish-sticks, dried up boiled potatoes, ragged meat - the works. Dis-friggin-gusting. The same food Haggis Junior got in the children's ward under public insurance. The pizza parlor across the street does roaring trade with the patients and the staff.

The menu, by the way, had a help feature for our Muslim friends: Anything with pork in it had a pictogram of a pig. Unfortunately, some moran (or Muslim-hater) got it exactly the wrong way round so the Schweinwürstl were declared pork-free*.
*Then again, maybe they were.

I spent some time in the Klinik am Eichert in Göppingen. Food was lousy there, but mainly because it wasn't 'expat-compatible'.

No matter how long I stay here, I will never get used to cold meats on dry bread in the mornings and evenings. Some of the cooked lunches weren't too bad, but again not my thing.

I was glad to get out of there and get some food that I consider decent, although I wasn't really in much of a state to be cooking myself.

PS. I got my own room, being privately insured, but there was no option for alternative food.

Nope to my understanding the only thing first class insurance buys you is access to the top doc or his 2nd in command (go those on both births) and a private room. Everything else is same as normal class, i.e., the food.

Depends upon your policy.

My friend had surgery for breast cancer. She was allowed to choose the surgeon, the hospital and was allowed to choose which plastic surgeon did the reconstruction. She shared a room with 1 other patient and had a meal choice. The other patient had no meal choice and no newspaper either. They also had a private toilet and bathroom between them.

My policy states I get my own room BUT if I choose to share I will get the cash difference (though I hope that I never have to use it) (My policy is with Debeka)

As for food, my mother in law was in hospital and was not eating the food as it was so terrible. I cooked her her two favourite meals and she ate them no problem.

Ja, genau...stimmt..! ;-) Thats one more option with private insurance...You can pick a doctor of your choice (available at the hospital, where you got admitted)..!

my best friend was in schwabinger Krankenhaus for a month. She's a celiac (strong allergy to glutten) and even though she told them 10 times a day , and it was on all her admittance sheets and doctor's referrals, they still brought her glutten-laden food for the first 3 weeks she was in there - 3 times a day. I used to go and pick up food for her and bring it in.

I was in a private clinic near goetheplatz for a week and the food was fine. First day or so after the operation you just had to eat what you were given, which was fine but a bit bland, but after that you could choose from the 2 or 3 choices on the menu!

I really varies from hospital to hospital. And private doesn't necessarily mean better.

I have rather extensive experience of the hospitals here - my woman has used them far, far too often. I've never seen any decent, nutritional looking meal there. Hospitals do alot of soup yeah? Its easily digestible, easy to eat, good for convalescence. The soup I've seen here has, without exception, been made up from packets. How the fuck you are meant to get better eating packeted soups is beyond me. Idiocy. Soup is the easiest thing in the world to cook. It can be super nutritous, and cost next to nothing. Requires no skill to make. Needs to cook for a while sometimes, but requires little human interaction atall. Soo easy. Nope, apparently mixing powder with boiling water is a better choice. Probably costlier, certainly less good for you, and guaranteed to taste inferior.

It really pisses me off to be fair, and it's not just a German thing, NHS food is equally appalling. I know alot of people that worked in hospital kitchens when I was at school, and it was a prime job. Better pay than any other student job in the area, by quite some factor. SAturdays and sunday, the only days when you can work whilst you are at school, actually attracted 1.5 and double time pay respectively. Great money! God knows what they were paid for. I woould not have employed the people I knew that worked there in ANY capacity in a kitchen, even as porter. Useless.
And that's it. The food is nothing to do with cooks or chefs, just minions. Jamie Oliver did his bit getting "dinner ladies" to start cooking again. You could not do anything similar with hospital kitchen workers, because they never cooked in the first place.

The amount of money my woman pays in this country for health insurance (self employed) is insane, and you get nothing better than the NHS in England offer really. I'm not one to moan about doctors or nurses, because they do a great job, but cleaners and cooks at hospitals should be fucking ashamed, or shot. Hospitals are consistently dirty, and the food looks like it would make you more ill than anything else.

I have never been a patient at a hospital so I've never eaten hospital food either but it's not somethig I would particularly look forward to.

That's the problem - the kitchen staff can't cook because the budgets don't allow for qualified chefs to be employed. Quality staff etc costs money and Some NHS or Krankenkasse manager rather gets himself a pay rise and then there is no money left.

See also MRSA problems due to lack of hygene. Cleaning staff are low-paid, not trained and probably get 6 minutes to clean a ward of 200 square meters. Who can expect this to work.

I've never had problems with the Opera browser. Its looking like a user error at the moment.

I was in the Nuns clinic (Dritte Orden) for 2 weeks and the food was, as you described, uninteresting but not bad.
Maybe if you were Bavarian you might like it. Be me any my teddy turned our noses up. (Mohammed doesn't eat meat you see)

So another horror story from Schwabinger Khs. I'd really avoid that place if at all possible.

I think we need some kind of league table for hospitals. Categories such as care, then food should be one of them.

Are hospitals here just as shit as those in UK? Are there things they might do better in oine country that they don't do in the other?

For example, there is one hospital in the south west of the UK whose name escapes me, which has farm fresh stuff ferried in, cooked and is of high quality. Does that exist here?

Ian,

by the way, don't confuse Dritte Orden with Taxisklinik. I know Dritte Orden - its just up the road. By the way I don't want to knock Taxis - other than the food - the place itself is brilliant. The "docs" who did my kids were heroes to me. And the nurses were also brillaint. Almost all tasty looking, especially in those uniforms, but that's a Friday night thread...

Certainly in England, that is simply untrue. When I was 2nd in command of a thriving kitchen, I was on a fraction of the wages a mate earned in a hospital kitchen, and he was very lowly. We won the best pub in bucks award, he didn't, but he was richer.
Cleaners in England are mostly out-sourced, and although it may be that subcontracted cleaners might get low wages, the money the hospitals pay is higher than any other cleaning jobs I've seen.

It is mis-management, of funds and people. Simple as that.

my brother got effing MRSA during a 6 week coma-stay (motorbike crash) in Blackpool Vic's Intensive Care ward 3 years ago. it took him a year to finally beat.
supposedly one nurse per patient is required but they only ever had half the staff on. we walked in one time and my brother had somehow tumbled out of bed, no one had noticed! his catheter bag was full to bursting (isn't that dangerous??) so we emptied the slash out of it ourselves.
he's since been offered further operations to correct his accident-caused disabilities but he's always said no unless it was absolutely necessary. no way he wants MRSA again.
the NHS is a shambles.
my mum had an NHS mammography last week. it was in a caravan in Morrison's car-park!

Don is right, it's mis-management of funds & people.

re. German hospital food...Mr.Moonboot's Opa was staying in a big hospital in Neuperlach in the geriatric ward. the food there was ace! there was a choice for each day, it was the usual cold meats, cheese and rolls for breaky, big warm meal for lunch, then cold stuff again for dinner. he even had 'Wies'n Hendl' & ginger heart biccies over OFest time. free drinks for visitors too

I was in the chirurgische Klinik in Nußbaumstrasse for a while recently and it was my first experience of hospital in Germany. What impressed me most was the cleanliness and lack of typical 'hospital smell' I know from home. I watched the cleaners (not much else to do) and they were so thorough and they seemed to be cleaning constantly, no cutting corners, no half-assedly dragging a smelly mop around. Really impressed.

I wasn't able to eat solids and the soup was most definitely packet stuff, standard flavour was salt I think. The other person in my room got quite a variety of food and said she enjoyed it all - her only complaint was that it was simply too rich and too much (portions were huuuge) for someone recovering from surgery... she had to request lighter meals. Sausages, bread and processed cheese seemed to feature a lot as did goulasch type stuff with rice. Vegetables seemed to be mainly tiny little carrots that looked like they came from a can. No fruit. Yoghurts, bread, sausage and cheese in the morning. It didn't look bad, but way too much emphasis on meat I reckon.

EDIT: All in all I was reallllllly impressed by the whole thing. I came in through Emergency and couldn't get over how quickly and thoroughly everything was handled and explained, how incredibly patient and nice everyone from the lowliest to the loftiest was in dealing with me. I was lucky enough to be in a 2 bed room but even in the public ward, it was much less frenetic than hospitals at home, no garish lighting, no massive open wards, no pumping TVs.

Hospital food in Germany is a bit like that in the rest of the world...completely crap. I had to stay in the Schwabinger for 21 days a few years ago, for the first few days I was so ill I didnt really eat much or care what I ate...after that the nurse handed me the take away menu from the local Italian and told me the delivery times...which was where the staff and most of the patiants got their evening meals from...that just about sums it it up

For the best hospital nosh around, go to the Wolfart Klinik! Always so hard to eat less when I am in the hospital, but the food is so tempting that I request a salad plate in the evenings. Just got home from my third stay there and had the best fish that I ever had...and I am used to VERY good food.

The most disgusting slop is served in Krankenhaus Bogenhausen..visited my friend and we saw the aides dish the food out of enormous buckets onto plates whilst licking their fingers..revolting!

My daughter was born at the Paracelsus Klinik (Mozartstrasse, Munich). The food was really very good there, so much so that the third woman in our room, who had a c-section and was allowed only soup for a couple of days after, asked the other two of us to shut up complimenting it!

I was in Rechts der Isar for a couple of weeks and the food was fine - bland, OK, but they're hardly going to dish up flavourful curries in German hospitals now, are they, let's be realistic. Breakfast oul' bread and stuff as normal, lunch choice of meat or vegetarian, evening was a Brotzeit kind of a thing plus fruit/yoghurt. Hot meals were well seasoned. There may have been soup, but if there was it must have been optional as I managed to dodge it for the whole stay. All meals also had an ultra-megabland option for people with allergies/recovering from surgery/wimps. You'd have to be dead dead fussy to classify the food there as poor or inedible.

Any info on the Pasing Klinikum?

I have to go in for 2 weeks and although I am dieting, I dont want to be totally miserable.

Can you take stuff in that can be kept refridgerated? A box of cereal for the morning? This is my first experience in a German hospital.

Dunna worry sweetie..

I managed to smuggle KFC into Hospital whist Poots was detained...

But this will not help your diet in anyway at all!!

But if I am desperate I can call on you then SP?

Yep!!

Spiderpig at your service!

lol thanks SP! I was really worried about the hospital but you made me smile!

The food in Pasing is fine by hospital standards (at least it was a year ago), and I like my food. There's just not much of it. Just a ham roll for tea for instance.
No idea about borrowing fridge space as I went in at extreme short notice and didn't have time to plan, but I didn't notice anything or hear anyone mention it.
There should be no problem with other stuff as long as the docs say it's okay. There's a (very) small shop in the entrance area that sells chocolate and stuff anyway

Edit: What worries you about the place?

Not Pasing specifically, just the whole surgery/hospital thing.

Scottish patients are usually force-fed with Haggis for breakfast, lunch and dinner ...

Thats ok! Having it for dinner tonight!!

Could be worse, could be force fed Leberkase!

I spent several months in hospital when I was expecting my second and third children (in Bad Soden am Taunus with da boy and in Düsseldorf with da girl). I thought the food was really good, as hospital food goes.

When my son was taken seriously ill in Italy 18 months ago though, the food was awful. Bordering on inedible. He was lucky that he spent the first half of the stay on a glucose drip that way he didn't have to eat the slop.

Tragic... because everywhere else in Italy the food's brilliant!

This has to be a joke thread!!! I spent 18 days in the Schawbinger, medical treatment excelent, the food total crap and the italian pizza place accross the road makes a fortune in takaways, they even had a special hospital trolley to bring the food over in!!!

I had to go for an operation a few years ago. Was in a privately run clinic.
Food was SHITE.

Likewise we got stuff brought in and takeaways etc.

OH. MY. GOD.

You do know that Privately Run clinics are owned by the capitalist scumbags you have been trying to overthrow for so many years don't you? Surely a man of your principles would have insisted on a flea infested socialist room with minimal care and appalling hygiene. You need to take a stand against these things citizen

If you're a vegetarian, you're fucked. Even if you're not, you're fucked. What we consider "dessert" many Germans consider "wholesome meal" and so some fucking sweet dough with cinnamon and applesauce can pass as lunch, while a sliver of shitty apple strudel soaked in vanilla cream is dinner. Bring your own food or get someone to deliver it to you.

woof.

Could this be the saddest thread of all time? "'The softness of funeral home pillows in Germany', on the next Geraldo".

This should have been discussed a long time ago - concerns us all (one day)

I had my tonsils taken out a few years ago ( at the age or 38 !!! ) , in Rosenheim Krankenhaus , upon coming round I was delighted to find out my treatment and recovery consisted of 4 bottles of Bierbichler weißbier for the first afternoon/evening and six bottles a day for the next 2 days until my release , supplemented by warm ( not hot ) soup and soft white bread !!

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, Bierbichler! When my Ma was in the Rosenheim hospital all she got was a pint of milk a day. But she had just had a baby.
The food, however, was abominable.

Höchst Krankenhaus - No, no, No...!! Never ever in my life!!

My husband was in Höchst Hospital 2 weeks ago and had a nightmare there.

They forgotten to give meals often. His roommate also had this problem too. When a new patient still in OP room, they had forgotten breakfast for him. And, when my husband went for 2nd OP, they have forgotten meal for his roommate. And the food there, look not so appetite (especially the Obstsalat with jelly). I have tried it when my husband didn't want to take it, I've vomit out. My husband had ddecided to order a Pizza from Pizza delivery which opposite from hospital.

My husband had OP for his backside but he got some bonus "gratis". My husband's foot got injured while OP. The next day, after the Oberärztin had change the bandage for my husband, his backside keep bleeding. The doctor came back and asked him to shower all the blood away and sew him without narcotic.
On the third day, my husband must go for another OP to stop the bleeding and the nurse have did a mistake again while doing injection. They insert the injection wrongly until his arm was swollen after it and the medic. liquid keep "running down" ... A while later, they try to make the injection to this leg. After it, my husband feel pain at his leg all of the time - 2/3 days.

He is lucky that he's out from hospital.

I spent a few days in the Chirugische Klinik Dr. Rinecker for back surgery a year and a half ago and the food was great (and the nurses hot). As a vegetarian I was certainly not fucked (as BadDoggie blurts above), I was almost constantly stuffed.