State to ink MoU with Akshyapatra Foundation to serve food to patients in A‘bad and Gandhinagar Civil Hospitals.
After serving nutritious and delicious food to nearly 2.30 lakh students in Gujarat under its Mid-Day-Meal programme, Akshyapatra Foundation - a nationwide initiative of Bangalore based ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) will also be serving healthy and hygienic food to patients of the Civil Hospitals in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar.
The state government will sign an MoU with the foundation in this regard some time next week.
As serious concerns were raised about the quality of food being given to patients in the civil hospitals, the state government has now decided to outsource the job of preparing and serving the food.
In a bid to give better service to patients and attend to their basic requirement in a more focused manner, the government authorities are at presently thinking of giving the job to Akshaya Patra.
At present the food is prepared in the kitchens in the hospital premises. However, within a week, many changes are about to be effected. Right now lunch includes dal\kadhi, two types of vegetables, salad, roti and rice, sources at the Civil Hospital said.
"Many patients with special protein requirements are also given eggs," said Dr. MM Prabhakar, hospital superintendent. "However, with the new changes to be introduced soon, the hospital kitchen would only take care of the breakfast that includes providing bread, biscuits, milk, tea or coffee," he said. "The food that is provided at present by the hospital authorities will be supplied by
Akshaya Patra," he added.
Sources in the state health department at Gandhinagar have confirmed the development. They said: "We have given approval to outsource the food for patients to Akshaya Patra. The organisation was chosen because of its proven track record in the Mid-Day-Meal scheme."
He further said, "There are approximately 1500 patients at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital and on an average each patient is accompanied by two relatives. So the food will be served to nearly 4500 people in the hospital every day. Nearly 2100 people will be served food at Gandhinagar Civil Hospital.”
He said as of now no menu has been fixed but once the MoU is signed, the new menu for the patients will be planned by Akshaya Patra in consultation with dietitians and doctors." Jagan Mohan Das, Akshaya Patra's head of operations in Gujarat could not be contacted for his comments.
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