Meal budget sickens |
It's criminal that provincial inmates in Ontario are alloted more money a day for their jailhouse cuisine than sick patients receive in hospitals, health experts say.
Prisoners at the Metro Toronto West Detention Centre are each granted $11.02 a day for food.
Hospital patients don't receive as much -- at St. Michael's the budget for a patient's food is $8.07 a day, for hospitals in the University Health Network it is $6.50 a day, and at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre it is $7.
The public relations department at The Hospital for Sick Children refused to disclose how much is spent for a patient's food, which is budgeted by individual hospitals.
Stewart McGetrick, with the ministry of public safety and correctional services, says jails need the $11.02 a day per prisoner to meet the nutritional standards set by the province.
Sick people need the best possible nutrition to become well, said Doris Grinspun, executive director of the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario.
"It's phenomenal and astounding. Everyone should be receiving the same," Grinspun said. "People in hospitals have more complex needs ... the government needs to step in."
Several calls to Health Minister George Smitherman's office were not returned this week.
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