Hotel Dieu Hospital café brings home the gold

Hotel Dieu Hospital café brings home the gold
(Kingston, ON, May 13, 2013) Healthy eating is always on the menu at Hotel Dieu Hospital’s Brockview
Café and now it has a top award to prove it.
Today the Café was presented with a 2013-2014 Gold Eat Smart!® Workplace Award of Excellence by
KFL&A Public Health. Only the second workplace in the KFL& A area to achieve Gold status, the Café
was recognized for its outstanding commitment to safe and healthy food choices.
“The average employed Canadian adult spends about 60 per cent of their waking hours at work, and
most employees eat at least one meal during their work hours,” says Food Services Manager Eugene
Littlejohn, “so the workplace is an ideal setting to promote healthy eating.”
After scoring Bronze Eat Smart! Awards for the past several years, the Café made the jump to Gold
thanks to new pricing and promotion strategies that made healthier food choices more visible and
attractive to customers, and to labelling healthy food options in hospital vending machines. Food
Services also implemented a policy to guide staff about healthy food choices for hospital events.
“Participating in the workplace program at the Gold level really shows Hotel Dieu’s commitment to
employee health,” says Littlejohn, “and since the Café is open to visitors to the hospital, it also
demonstrates a commitment to having healthier choices available to the wider community.”
In total, 20 workplaces in the KFL&A area were recognized by Public Health for their commitment to
providing healthier food choices and improved food safety, and to contributing to a smoke-free
Ontario.
Hotel Dieu Hospital is the ambulatory care teaching and research hospital for Kingston and Southeastern
Ontario, affiliated with Queen’s University. We provide expert care to more than 500,000 people in the region
through specialized programs including pediatrics, medicine, ophthalmology, cardiology, surgery, mental
health, oncology and urgent care. We deliver quality, safe health care, while advancing innovative research
and educating the health care professionals of the future. Leading the transformation of ambulatory care
L'Hôpital Hôtel-Dieu est l'établissement de soins ambulatoires universitaire pour Kingston et le Sud-Est de l'Ontario affilié à
l’Université Queen's. Il fournit des soins spécialisés à plus de 500 000 personnes de la région. Parmi ses services spécialisés,
mentionnons les services de pédiatrie, de médecine, d’ophtalmologie, de cardiologie, de chirurgies, de santé mentale,
d’oncologie et de soins d'urgence. L'hôpital fournit des services de soins de santé sûrs et de qualité tout en menant des
recherches novatrices et en formant les professionnels de la santé de demain. Chef de file pour la transformation des
soins ambulatoires
-30Media contact:
Anne Rutherford, Public Relations, 613-544-3400, ext. 3380, [email protected]