Row fizzes over sugary drinks in hospital

Vending machines in Galway’s public hospitals continue to sell sugar-laden fizzy drinks and unhealthy snacks – despite having a healthy food initiative in place for the past two years.

Vending machines – often the only source of food and drink for patients and visitors to hospitals – have been slammed as not complying with the Health Service Executive’s national policy on providing only healthy choices, in place since 2014.

“What about Coca-Cola? What’s healthy about those? They’re sugary products,” exclaimed the Fine Gael’s Padraig Conneely, who submitted questions at the Regional Health Forum West meeting on the contract for vending machines in Galway University Hospitals.

Chief Operating Officer of the Saolta hospital group, Ann Cosgrove, replied that she did not use the machines herself and could not state what products they sold.

She explained that a contract had been signed with Aramark this month which would see the terms of the healthy vending policy implemented.

Cllr Conneely asked if any product that was not healthy would be removed.

“It will take a period of time to implement. We’ve only just signed the contract,” she insisted.

However, the HSE’s own website shows that it adopted a national ‘Policy on Healthy Vending Services’ in all hospitals and health facilities nationwide back in 2014.

Consultant Endocrinologist Professor Donal O’Shea has stated that having healthy food in hospitals is a vital pre-emptive strike on addressing sick people’s poor eating habits.

For more on this story, see this week’s Galway City Tribune