Soon, Ahmedabad civic hospitals to offer tasty diet food

There is good news for patients of hospitals run by Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation.

AMC has decided to provide customised diet meals to all the patients of the three major municipal hospitals.

According to the mayor and chairman of hospital committee, Asit Vora, patients of VS Hospital, LG Hospital and Shardaben Hospital will get meals from Bangalore based non-profit organisation Akshaypatra.

Akshaypatra is a trust, involved in providing mid-day meals in many states across the country including Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. It is already involved in providing meals to more than 1,200 patients of the Civil Hospital at Asarwa. Looking at the quality and hygiene standards maintained by the trust, AMC decided to give the contract to Akshaypatra.

Explaining about the project, standing committee chairman Bhupendra Patel said the trust will provide meals twice a day to each patient. "It will be under no-profit no-loss basis. We will pay Rs52 for two meals, i.e. Rs26 for one meal," said Patel.

According to the assistant commissioner Ramya Bhatt, patients will get tasty and nutritious meals. "The trust's kitchen is huge and is equipped with high-end cooking facilities," she said. At present, there are more than 1,500 patents in the three hospitals and the trust will provide five different varieties of meals suggested by the doctors. "Patients will be given salt-free diet, fat-free diet, high-protein diet, diabetic diet and light diet" said Bhatt. The food will be delivered from Gandhinagar to Ahmedabad in large vessels, and distributed according to the diet suggested by the doctors.

"The hospital staff, including nurses and ward boys, will coordinate to ensure patients get the food recommended for them," said Bhatt.