Members of the staff serve food to patients at the SCB Medical College and Hospital. Picture by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, March 27: The Sriram Chandra Bhanja (S.C.B.) Medical College and Hospital spends a meagre amount of Rs 20 per day for diet of each patient admitted in its indoor wards.

But it will soon be a thing of the past, as the hospital authorities plan to liven up the indoor patients’ menu with the likes of fresh fruits and chicken by spending Rs 30 more for each of them from next month. For the first time, breakfasts will also be introduced for the patients of the hospital.

A member of the hospital’s diet committee, which is headed by the district collector, said: “It will not longer be said that even prisoners get better diet than the patients of this hospital, as we are preparing their diet chart with special attention. The budget for patients diet has been increased by 150 per cent.”

Incidentally, the state government had also increased the budget for the prisoners’ diet from Rs 35 to Rs 50 last year.

“The budget of the patients’ diet has been increased from Rs 20 to Rs 50. Accordingly, a new patients’ menu with the increased budget has been approved by the S.C.B. Medical College and Hospital for serving better meals from April 1,” collector Kishore Kumar Mohanty told The Telegraph today.

The measly allocation of Rs 20 for a patient’s daily diet at the state’s premier government hospital had forced the administration to discontinue cooked meals and substitute it with bread, milk, egg and biscuits six years ago. Cooked meals were reintroduced in the hospital in August 2009 after a private company, Mars Developers Suppliers, agreed to provide cooked meals in lunch and dinner for every patient at Rs 20 per day.

The hospital authorities allowed the private contractor to serve meals, but it did not go for privatising the system. The authorities have since then not been involved in the actual food buying, cooking or serving process, but paid for the food prepared by the private company.

Mars Developers and Suppliers, which has been operating at the hospital’s kitchen to prepare meals with its own accessories, had in July last year demanded hike in the allocation for the patients’ daily diet.

“We have tried to meet the nutritional requirement by carefully planning the diet with the sanctioned amount. Efforts are on to introduce the new menu for the patients from April 1 under the same system,” hospital superintendent D.N. Maharana told The Telegraph today.

The hospital is supposed to feed 1,200 patients everyday. “For the first time, we will serve breakfast to the patients. We will include puri, upama, chapatti, bread, suji halwa and vegetable curry for breakfast. Fresh apples, oranges or bananas will also be a part of the breakfast menu,” hospital’s dietician Surajbhanu Baliarsinha told The Telegraph today.

“Besides, there will be separate menu for diabetic patients,” he added.

“The main two daily meals will include fish or egg (once in a day) on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays and chicken on Sundays. For TB patients, however, fish or egg will be served in both the meals a day, apart from chicken on Sundays,” the dietician said.