Half of hospital food waste ends up in the garbage.

A huge loss: breakfast, lunch, and dinner in hospital wards cost €1 billion a year. Field research conducted in Turin to understand the phenomenon. Two solutions to avoid waste: centralized procurement of supplies at the regional level, and better-quality food at normal times. And not dinner served in the wards at six in the afternoon.

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waste in hospitals

FOOD WASTED IN HOSPITALS

There's a food waste that directly impacts public finances: what happens every day, amidst widespread helplessness, in hospitals. The estimated percentage is around 40 percent, but in many cases half of the food contained in the trays for Breakfast, lunch and dinner for the patients, promptly ends up in the garbage: a huge waste of food and money, if we think that a meal in the hospital costs between 12 and 18 euros and in Italy we have an average of 11 million hospital admissions per year.

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The most comprehensive field investigation has been done in Piedmont, where for 48 consecutive weeks a group of doctors and nutritionists measured the amount of wasted meals in 35 departments of 13 health facilities in the region. The total is shocking: 3 million euros wasted.If you consider that Piedmont is one of the regions with the highest levels of healthcare efficiency, and if you consider that the overall expenditure on meals in the National Health Service amounts to approximately 1 billion euros, you can get an idea of ​​the enormity of this waste. And how much money could be recovered, perhaps to improve other healthcare services?How? First, by using the method just followed with the centralized procurement of needles, which resulted in savings of €132 million nationwide. In this case, procurement for hospital meals should be centralized at the regional level, as already happens in some areas of the country, such as Emilia-Romagna. Another important deterrent against food waste in hospitals would be the control of food quality and the times of distribution of meal trays.Too much food distributed in hospitals is inedible, and in too many healthcare facilities, for example, dinner is served at six in the afternoon (perhaps to please some internal hospital union regarding staff shift schedules). How many Italians go to dinner at home at 18 pm? A very small minority, and It is not clear why patients should have an appetite and eat at times they are not used to..

THE SCANDAL OF FOOD WASTE IN ITALY:

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