By Evelyn Essling
Aurora, Ill.
AMITA Health Mercy Medical Center must have the largest amount of waste food in their garbage collection bins.
Unfortunately, my husband had to be a guest in that place more times than we care to remember..
Starting in June 2019 he was in for, what the doctors said was pneumonia. It wasn’t, but they kept him in there for five days.
He was home for a week and then back in AMITA for another week. It happened six times in 2019, and my husband kept losing weight. He complained about the horrible food. One son told me, “Mom, did you ever hear someone say, “Hey, let’s go out to the hospital for supper,”? Never! But the food at AMITA is horrible and they charge the patients and the insurance companies for patients’ meals! They have one entree and two choices. Take it or leave it!
My husband asked to see the person who was in charge of the kitchen, and told him that when he was a kid on the farm, they gave better stuff than that to the hogs! I could see the person delivering the meals, through the open door of the room, and he took the lid off of every dish to see who got what, then brought it in. I looked at it, and tasted it sometimes, and it was cold! Any heat that was in the food was lost when the zombie or robot took the lid off.
Please tell me how many people, ill to begin with, would want to eat Asian stir fry? If they wouldn’t eat that when they were well, and it did not even look appetizing on a plate, how could they be expected to get well? He was told he could order anything else he wanted. He ordered a hamburger. Cold and tough! He sent it home with me for our dog to wrestle with. It was 2019.
I’d bring him a Wendy’s and a milk shake, even though our insurance was paying the hospital for three meals a day for its patient!
In 2020, he was in for a knee replacement. Same lousy food, same one entree menu, with two choices. Again, a robot or zombie delivered his food even though he was out of his room for a procedure. He got back and his cold food was sitting there or he was sleeping, and when he woke up, his cold food was on the tray. Do they have any heated carts at AMITA to keep the food warm from the kitchen to the patient’s room? How can AMITA, in good conscience, keep a food provider under contract for three years, that we know of anyway, who gives such bad meals to sick people?
I was injured in May 2020 and was taken to Rush Copley in Aurora! What a difference! Hot food that looked and tasted appetizing, and more than one choice for an entree!
My husband’s last meals at AMITA were the same as always. He ordered pancakes, and sausages. Pancakes were so cold the butter wouldn’t melt on them. That was breakfast. For lunch he ordered mac and cheese. It was so dry, very little cheese, and yes, cold.
AMITA, there has to be a better food service provider than the one you have. Rush-Copley found a good one! I know I’m not the only one to complain. I was in a restaurant recently and told the owner that I had just lost my husband. He asked what hospital. I told him AMITA Mercy, I was in Glen Ellyn and that man said that hospital is bad, so AMITA, your reputation is far-reaching.
I ask why they haven’t fired that food provider and then I ask myself “I wonder if he is related to someone on AMITA’S Board of Directors?” Can I ask that without getting sued? It’s happened before. Hey, even former vice president Joe Biden (at that time) got his son, Hunter, a very cushy job when he was kicked out of the Navy for doing drugs.