Saturdays mean special meals for rehab patients

Patients on the rehab unit at Scott and White Memorial Hospital in Temple, TX, are enjoying home cooked meals for lunch on Saturday.

The meals are chosen by the patients, approved by the dietician, and cooked by the staff, patients, and visitors.

Options for Meals got started when Jean Coufal, RN, CRRN, head nurse on the comprehensive inpatient unit, noticed that staff were preparing their own meals and sharing with the patients in the unit’s kitchen. She asked Susan Woods, nursing assistant, to coordinate the Saturday meals as a special event.

Woods ask patients to help plan the meals, and she usually receives suggestions that are very different from what usually is on the patients’ lunch trays. Homemade soup and sandwiches, enchiladas and refried beans, and homemade brown beans with cornbread are among the most popular meals.

Woods clears the meals with the hospital’s dietician and pays careful attention to patients’ dietary restrictions. When patients asked for ham hocks in their beans, she got their physicians to agree because it was a rare treat.