SEAFORD, DE - TidalHealth Nanticoke announced an expanded partnership with local nonprofit Love INC of Mid-Delmarva to support patients facing food insecurity.
The food bag program is not new to TidalHealth Nanticoke. Patients may be identified as food-insecure during a social assessment done before discharge.
"It's asking people questions to assess their food needs and if they have a food insecurity, then we have what I call shelf staple meals," TidalHealth Director of Community Health Kat Rodgers said.
When the stock of bags dwindled, the Community Health Department looked for local partners who could consistently supply shelf-staple foods to the hospital.
Rodgers toured the food pantry at Love INC of Mid-Delmarva, less than half a mile from TidalHealth Nanticoke.
Love INC prepares the bags with items that require no cooking to consume. These include beans, canned pasta dishes and powdered milk.
"We're not trying to give them full meals for weeks," Love INC Community Relations Director Giovanni Otero said. "We're trying to give them something that will hold them over until they can then place a call for something more sustainable."
Food insecurity is the condition of limited or uncertain access to nutritionally adequate and safe foods. Many of the communities in Western Sussex County surrounding TidalHealth Nanticoke report high rates of food insecurity.
Rodgers said the food bag program seeks to support patients' nutritional needs in emergencies to combat the negative effects of inadequate nutrition, especially on people who may already be medically vulnerable after a hospital stay.
"It makes you at greater risk for chronic conditions," Rodgers said. "Things that can be prevented through healthy, nutritious food."
When patients need food, they are given a food bag voucher with their discharge paperwork. A Patient Care employee retrieves a bag from the stock supplied by Love INC, and a security guard delivers it to the patient at check out.
"We understand that people might be coming to us for an acute need at the hospital," Rodgers said. "We want to make sure that they're still supported when they leave so that they don't have to come back to the hospital."