(MENAFN- The Peninsula) By Fazeena Saleem | The Peninsula
Hamad Medical Corporation's (HMC)'s new hospital complex, which has the biggest healthcare kitchen in the region, can provide patients with up to 4,000 healthy and nutritious meals every day.
The modernly-equipped kitchen prepares meals for patients with different dietary needs and caters more than 65 different diets, says a senior official.
Reem Al Saadi, Director of Dietetics and Nutrition at HMC, said: 'A kitchen this size is a very complex operation and we cater to more than 65 different diets at any given time. This includes patients with swallowing issues and those with specific macro or micronutrient requirements. We know that nutritious meals play a role in the healing and recovery process and while patients are in hospital, diet is a priority and can govern how quickly a patient recovers. Every meal has to go through a strict process and is planned with dietitians according to the individual needs of the patient.
A media tour of the hospital kitchen situated within the Hamad bin Khalifa Medical City was held on Thursday to give a glance of its facilities and operations.
The food preparing process of the kitchen includes from ordering and delivery of the raw ingredients to the preparation and serving of the meals, and finally the meticulous clearing and cleaning process.
The kitchen includes different sections such as to prepare poultry, fish, vegetables as well as for rice washing and a separate bakery. It also has areas separated as the main kitchen, cold kitchen, hot kitchen, VIP kitchen, therapeutic kitchen areas to prepare different food items. The therapeutic kitchen prepares food tailor made recipes to match the required, calories and nutrition required by each patients.
A team of 300 staff including dietitians, chefs, and stewards, are involved in different stages of the food preparation process. Among them, 150 are employed to clean and maintain the hygiene of food and the facility.
Temperature-controlled storage facilities help in keeping raw and cooked food fresh and healthy.
'The kitchen was designed with maximum efficiency and to best meet the nutritional needs of our patients. It has separate streams (sections) for chicken, fish, bakery, and dairy items, as well as for processing, receiving, thawing, and sending out meals.
It is also equipped with 27 cold and freezer rooms to store food and is fitted with the most technically-advanced food-processing equipment, including machines that can peel and chop vegetables as well as cook bulk quantities of various foods, said Al Saadi.
Also each dish of the menu has been tested and assessed by dietitians. The menu has been designed to ensure that there is variety in each meal as breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks as well as it delivers the nutrition and calories needed to meet the health requirements of patients.
Further, food is tested several times while preparing and before serving to the patients.
In terms of numbers, the kitchen's enormous capacity means that it currently serves up more than 1,000kg of rice each month, enables the cleaning, washing and disinfecting of thousands of plates and pieces of cutlery, and has a master corridor that links the kitchen to the hospital facilities which is 800 metres long (two laps of an Olympic track).
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