Toast is back on the menu
Well done Team NZ for pushing back
A few days ago, a post popped up in a local Facebook group.
I read it with a sinking feeling, expecting to see multiple denigratory comments and rants about “affording kids”.
I was so happy to be wrong. People all across the comment section understood the value of tea and toast as comfort food, as an easily digestible meal, as a cultural meal post-birth. The post was rapidly shared around the socials. Everywhere it went, people responded with near-universal condemnation of the hospital’s penny-pinching ways.
The hospital in question responded. They mumbled about nutritional value, food budget over-runs, and waffled on about offering meals at mealtimes. There was sort of an apology, but not really. The toast and milo was gone and that was that.
Then something even more amazing happened.
Up and down the country, there was near-universal pushback on the hospital and on Te Whatu Ora Ministry of Health for denying birthing mums a hot cuppa and a piece of toast. There were multiple articles outraged that birthing mums were not being properly cared for. The toast became a symbol of all that was wrong with this government, making visible the ways they are taking from the poor to give to the already rich.
The Minister of Health, Shane Reti, was forced to step in.
The hospital in question was forced to backtrack and reinstate toast and spreads.
It’s a small win, for sure, but it did my tired heart good to see so many people understand the value of food beyond mere nutrition. That comfort and kindness and shown through a hot drink and toasted bread. That we are better as a nation than this ridiculous punching down being implemented at the behest of the National-led government.
Our collective response neatly avoided simplistic, nutritionistic, and deficit-orientated discourses, refused to uphold hospital power dynamics, encouraged agency and care for birthing mothers, and recognised food as a social determinant of health.
Well done us.
A small victory, may it be the first of many!
Bex, it was a distraction. It was handled fairly expertly by the CoC and made them seem reasonable leaders willing to reign in the over exuberance of ‘incompetent and extraneous managers’ in the health service. It has taken focus away from the core fact that this government has chosen to provide woefully inadequate funding across our public services.
‘They gave new mothers their tea and toast back, are they not magnanimous and wise?’
No, they’re utter neoliberal assholes determined to destroy our public services for the capital class. We need to keep our eye on the big picture.