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Speaker 1: Toast has become the latest health issue. So what's happened

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Speaker 1: here is the Health Minister Shane that Ettie has had

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Speaker 1: to step in to see to make sure that the

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Speaker 1: toast returns to the Wellington Regional Hospital Maternity ward. Usually

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Speaker 1: mums who've just given birth are offered a little bit

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Speaker 1: of toast, but how New Zealand says that on the

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Speaker 1: advice of dieticians, they've switched to offering a meal instead.

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Speaker 1: Alison Eddie is there is a College of Midwives Chief

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Speaker 1: Executive and with us.

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Speaker 2: Now, Hey Allison, Hi, Heather, how are you?

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Speaker 1: I'm well, thank you? Is this really a nutrition thing

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Speaker 1: or is it actually a budget thing?

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Speaker 2: Well, it's difficult to say, isn't it. I mean we've

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Speaker 2: had an age old tradition of toast and tea after

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Speaker 2: labor and booth. It's lots of reasons for that. Woman

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Speaker 2: often don't feel like a full meal, just like marathon

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Speaker 2: runners don't feel like sitting down to a nutritious meal

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Speaker 2: or a big meal after running the marathon. You know,

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Speaker 2: women that have been through the process of labor. Offen

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Speaker 2: wants something light and comforting and warm. It may not

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Speaker 2: be the most nutritious food but it has a lot

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Speaker 2: of significance and cultural value as well. And so you know,

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Speaker 2: I know that the health system is under incredible pressure

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Speaker 2: at the moment to save money. So it does seem

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Speaker 2: as if there may have been a motive around that.

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Speaker 2: Hard to say, Okay.

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Speaker 1: Let's assume. Let's assume we'll deal each with each one differently. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So Allison, if it is a budget tree thing, really,

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Speaker 1: how much money are they saving here?

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Speaker 2: Well, it doesn't seem like a very extensive commodity.

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Speaker 1: We're not talking about like, we're not talking about the

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Speaker 1: fancy gluten re vogels here are we. We're talking about

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Speaker 1: pretty straight up and down white bread.

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Speaker 2: Pretty much standard hospital issue, but like the coffee, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: nothing flesh.

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Speaker 1: Okay. They say that staff have also been nibbling, nibbling

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Speaker 1: the toast even then, though I find it hard to

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Speaker 1: begrudge this because the staff sometimes have to do overtime

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Speaker 1: and stuff, So surely you're entitled to a couple of

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Speaker 1: slices of white bread.

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Speaker 2: Oh well, I mean, I think mostly people bring their

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Speaker 2: own food in because they often don't get a very

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Speaker 2: long break, and they get half an hour even to

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Speaker 2: get to the cafeteria and back in half an hour's

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Speaker 2: almost impossible. And if you get half, if you're lucky

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Speaker 2: enough to get half an hour, yeah, but in the

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Speaker 2: middle of the night it's closed and so you know

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Speaker 2: you're working extra hours. Maybe you might have a piece

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Speaker 2: of toast. But I mean, people are very aware that

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Speaker 2: it is for the patients and your families and would

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Speaker 2: never begrudge them that at their own expense. But actually,

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Speaker 2: if we can't look after our stuff, that's a bit

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Speaker 2: sad as well as Okay.

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Speaker 1: Now let's assume that they are telling the truth when

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Speaker 1: they say it's a nutrition thing. The problem here, it

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Speaker 1: seems to me, is that the meals in the hospitals.

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Speaker 1: You can tell me if I'm wrong, but I thought

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Speaker 1: the meals in the hospitals where it prescribed times, right,

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Speaker 1: So if you get birth just after breakfast, I mean

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Speaker 1: that's tough to ask a mum then to wait till

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Speaker 1: lunchtime before she can get some food in her tummy.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, absolutely, the meals are deliberates at times and not

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Speaker 2: convenient times around when you might be giving birth. Yes,

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Speaker 2: so you need something that you can have immediately available

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Speaker 2: to you when you need it.

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Speaker 1: Also, Allison, whatever happened to us being like, literally, I've

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Speaker 1: just pushed the baby out. I'm obviously a grown up

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Speaker 1: and can make my own decisions about what I put

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Speaker 1: in my mouth and whether it's toast or not.

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Speaker 2: What happened to that, well, that's interesting as well. It's

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Speaker 2: another interesting question. Yeah, I'm not sure what the what

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Speaker 2: the nutritious meal would look like.

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Speaker 1: To be honest, the hospital foods are probably not that nutritious,

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Speaker 1: is it. I'm struggling to have confidence in these people

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Speaker 1: if this is the kind of stupid decision they make.

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Speaker 1: What am I being unfair?

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean I think there's what I'm seeing, and

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Speaker 2: when I mean, I'm not employed by the by Health

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Speaker 2: New Ealand or to war. But what I'm seeing is

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Speaker 2: and people are under incredible pressure to save money. They're

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Speaker 2: looking for lines that they can cross out of budgets

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Speaker 2: so they can balance the bottom line. And I think

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Speaker 2: sometimes in those situations, people don't always make thoughtful decisions

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Speaker 2: because they've got a lot of pressure coming down on

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Speaker 2: them with anything to discriminate against women or to deliberately

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Speaker 2: undermine people's healthy needs or their needs after they've given birth.

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Speaker 2: I think it was just a let's see where we

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Speaker 2: can draw a line in a budget because because we've

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Speaker 2: got so much expectation on them to do that at.

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Speaker 1: The moment, because of the number of ridiculous decisions that

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Speaker 1: are being made at the moment. There is a theory

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Speaker 1: starting to as a slightly conspiratorial theory. But the theory

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Speaker 1: is that this is being being done, like really stupid

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Speaker 1: decisions being taken deliberately to cause as much outcry and

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Speaker 1: uproar as possible. Is that potentially what's going on.

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Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't think so. I don't know

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Speaker 2: if it's deliberate. It's had a lot of it's caused

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Speaker 2: a lot of pushback, yeah, for lots of reasons.

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Speaker 1: All right, yeah, Allison, thank you mate. I really appreciated

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Speaker 1: Alison Eddie, College of Midwife's chief executive. If I had,

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Speaker 1: if I had to give you my take on this,

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Speaker 1: I would say that what was done was done for

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Speaker 1: budgetary reasons, and they realized how bad that looks because

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Speaker 1: oh cool, Yeah, take the food away from the woman

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Speaker 1: who's just done a marathon, you know, twenty seven hour berthing.

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Speaker 1: She's the one you should take the toast away from.

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Speaker 1: They realized how bad that looks to them. They were like,

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Speaker 1: it's nutrition, which also looks bad because come on, just

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Speaker 1: come on, you don't need to give people, you know,

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Speaker 1: their meat and veggies after they've given birth to you

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Speaker 1: just want to put something in your mouth and go

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Speaker 1: to sleep, don't you. That's generally what happens. For more

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