Upstate Hospital’s new Nappi Wellness Institute has opened a food bank, so patients don't go home hungry after a doctor’s appointment. The hope is one bag of groceries can lead to a greater awareness of food insecurity among patients, with the goal of ending it.
Upstate employee Mary Beth Schoeneck said food insecurity has a real impact on health. She recalled one particularly sad story.
"Well, we had a situation where we had a woman who was, we were dealing with depression, terrible depression, and when we got to the bottom of the depression, it was that she was unable to feed her children," Schoeneck said. "And it was really heartbreaking to realize that's why she was so sick because she couldn't feed them."
Schoeneck glanced at a wall full of food items, to create a custom bag of groceries for patients who need it.
"So here we went and got a box of cereal, a jar of spaghetti, we got macaroni and beef, two cans of fruit and vegetables, and then we have milk as well,” Schoeneck said.
Patients are offered the bag meant to last only a day or two, if they answer yes to one question: have they had a day during the last year, when they didn’t know where their next meal was coming from? It’s a standard question required by New York State according to Primary Care Physician Caitlen Toomey, and it doesn’t end with that one bag of food.
"What we additionally ask people is if it's okay for the Food Bank of Central New York to call them after the appointment," Toomey said. "If they agree to that, the food bank will call them and screen them for other assistance programs. So a lot of our patients have been signed up for a snap through this. A lot of our patients have been signed up for a WIC or other assistance programs as well, not even just food related.”
Toomey said she’d like to see the issue of treating food security to go beyond that.
"I'm really hoping to move beyond just food, emergency food supply, and move more toward something like food prescriptions where we can help people access healthy foods that's going to help treat and prevent chronic diseases and things like that," Toomey said.
