Food ‘appalling’...

My mother, who is nearly 90, was taken into the hospital for a broken hip recently and she coult not eat the food – it was appalling. The look put you off before even tasting it, and when you are ill you need nourishing food to get well again.

I work in Lancing and was making meals for her and heating them in our works microwave, wrapping them up to keep them hot, then delivering them to her in the hospital on my way home. She would have lived off hospital sandwiches otherwise, and these were not very appetising. We also took in fresh, home-made sandwiches to keep her going.

You read about this so often in the daily papers about elderly patients becoming dehydrated and undernourished, but I have now experienced it for myself and hope I am never in the same position.

My mother is lucky to have family to support her – what would have happened if she’d had nobody?

However, the surgeon was very attentive and considerate and, after several days of the hospital trying to discharge her and our insistence that all the care programme was not in place for her to come home, she was kept in for another five days, until the home care was properly sorted. Since then, the care team has given her very good support.

Rosemary Merrydew

Conbar Avenue

Rustington