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Southlake Broadens Menu Options: Meeting the Needs of a Growing community

Newmarket, Ontario – April 5, 2010 Patients admitted to Southlake Regional Health Centre (Southlake) are now able to choose from a larger selection of meal options, compliments of the Food Services Department’s newly broadened menu. Southlake has readily offered vegetarian, vegan, and kosher foods for many years, and has recently expanded its menu to include a larger variety of Halal meals designed to meet the needs of a growing multicultural community.

“Southlake has been and always will be sensitive to the needs of our growing community,” says Dan Carriere, President and CEO at Southlake. “This initiative is about ensuring that patients are aware of the menu choices available to them when they find themselves admitted to the hospital.” 

The fundamental difference with Halal food is the technique used to end the life of the animal, using a process within Muslim dietary restrictions that is believed to show respect for the animal.

In addition to expanding its Halal options, Southlake’s Food Services Department continues to offer a variety of options to in-patients with specific dietary requests based on an illness, intolerance, allergy, or sensitivity. The various menus include specialized textures, such as regular, dental soft, minced, pureed, fluids, and paediatric foods. Patients that have swallowing difficulties can receive a variety of texture-modified foods that can be combined with thickened liquids. 

In addition to broader menu options, Southlake also recently launched a ‘Spoken Menu’ process designed to simplify the process of communicating in-patients’ requests. Menu clerks, equipped with a computer on wheels, collect patients’ daily lunch and dinner requests early in the day, and enter the information into the Dietician Office’s new computerized diet system, the Computrition Hospitality Suite. Meal orders are then printed, placed on the patient’s tray, and delivered to the patient at meal times.

“Being able to provide a way to communicate our vegetarian, kosher and Halal selections is an exciting initiative that we are proud to provide to our patients,” said Tish Peirson, Manager of Food Services. “Our Spoken Menu clerks are able to ensure that patients’ food requests are being fulfilled and their nutrition requirements are constantly tracked to make certain that they receive the proper foods.”

As the York Region population continues to grow and diversify, Southlake is dedicated to providing our vision of Shockingly Excellent service by recognizing and meeting the needs of all of its patients and visitors who walk through its doors.

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