Peel Health Campus donates leftover food

29/4/2019

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Peel Health Campus (PHC) has donated more than 340 kilograms of food, or the equivalent of 686 meals, to the local Peel community through a partnership with Foodbank Peel.

Every week since July 2018, the hospital has donated unopened leftover food items, including packets of breakfast cereals, sugar, jam, coffee, vegemite, butter and more.

PHC Chief Executive Officer, Dr Margaret Sturdy, said the hospital’s partnership with Foodbank aligned with Ramsay Health Care’s values of “people caring for people.”

“Every day our catering staff prepare about 500 meals for patients,” Dr Sturdy said.

“Saving leftover food items for people in need is an important contribution to this community, which goes beyond our role as a health service provider,” Dr Sturdy said.

Foodbank WA is Western Australia’s largest food relief organisation providing over 6.1 million meals a year to people in need.

“We work with the entire food and grocery industry to rescue surplus and donated products that would otherwise be destined for landfill,” Foodbank Peel Branch Manager, Megan Reynolds, said.

“The gap between the amount of food that we rescue and the demand that exists in the community is growing, so this partnership couldn’t come at a better time. We are excited to be working together to turn leftovers into food for those that are going without.”

Foodbank also partners with industry and government on innovative programs to produce everyday food essentials such as beans, spaghetti, pasta, pasta sauce and rice.

“This enables Foodbank to provide over 480 charities with the provisions they need to fight hunger in the community,” Ms Reynolds said.

Ms Reynolds said that while other WA hospitals donated through food drives, PHC was the only health facility in WA to form an ongoing relationship with Foodbank whereby items were donated weekly.

“We love working with our local hospital and look forward to strengthening the relationship with them to help the most vulnerable members of our community,” she said.