‘Feeding the Front Line’ deliver first meals to GHA staff

The first food delivery from the newly formed ‘feeding the frontline’ group arrived at St Bernard’s Hospital yesterday, although it was not the first delivery of its kind arriving on the day.

Prior to the arrival of the Feeding the Frontline van, a host of deliveries had arrived within a short space of time, all bringing food to a variety of groups within the hospital. Most of these were independent initiatives or private orders made by personnel within the establishment.

The arrival of the community-led initiative Feeding the Frontlines van was greeted by Minister for Health Paul Balban and Acting Medical Director Krishna Rawal who were there to look over the procedures which were to be followed.

Prior the arrival of the delivery van, Gilliane Dellipiani and Jonathan Stagnetto, members of the group, spoke to Mr Balban and Dr Rawal.

Ms Dellipiani highlighted that one of her key concerns was on how to minimise cross-contamination.

She explained she had witnessed numerous deliveries arriving at the front entrance to the hospital and suggested that food delivery to the hospital, particularly to hospital staff, should be centralised by the Civil Contingency Committee.

She said this would not just "reduce cross contamination", but would ensure that food delivery was monitored and its distribution properly managed to ensure that all relevant areas were covered by all the volunteer groups who were now assisting in the efforts.

Ms Dellipiani added the group is very aware of the dangers of cross contamination, indicating that every effort would be taken to ensure that a strict set of procedures were followed by her volunteers.

"We are doing this every day and the last thing we want is to put any of these workers at risk due to cross contamination,” she said.

Feeding the Frontline hopes they will be able to deliver food on a daily basis to GHA staff.

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