Free hugs: better than donuts?

All I can say is: those donuts got me through some tough times.

When my sister was at death’s door for three solid weeks, and my brother and I spent all day, every day, at the Coronary Intensive Care Unit, sleeping there every night in a chair beside her or on a pullout couch in the family room; when my mother had open-heart surgery – twice – and we waited, anxiously and for hours, in the waiting room, for word; when my mother lived for months in transitional care waiting for a nursing home bed; and when, finally, my mother died at the Infirmary, after years of battling congestive heart failure. In between, there were emergency room visits too numerous to mention, surgeries too numerous to count, and appointments, x-rays, ultrasounds and CT scans too routine to recall.

Suffice to say, I have spent a lot of time roaming the halls of the QEII Health Sciences Centre, and a lot of those hours were well outside of typical “visiting hours.”

It’s not that you get hungry when you’re there, really. But you want comfort, a change of scene, an escape from whatever oppressive reality you’re facing at that particular moment. And sometimes, a trip downstairs (or upstairs, if you’re in Emerg) for a sweet, sugary donut and a hot cup of coffee is really about the only pleasure conceivable, and frankly, available, within the realm of that reality.

But that small respite, or part of it, is soon to be available no more on hospital property. Once October comes, Tim Hortons outlets on the properties of Capital Health will remove all food items that don’t meet Capital Health’s “healthy food” guidelines. That means that donuts, croissants and cinnamon buns will be out, and low-fat muffins and bagels will be in.

It’s a symbolic gesture; I understand that. Health care providers can hardly preach healthy lifestyles and simultaneously sell unhealthy food without appearing to contradict themselves.

The thing is, at the Infirmary, the cafeteria closes nightly at 7 pm. After that, until about one in the morning, Tim’s – and a couple of pricey vending machines – is pretty much all you’ve got.

I will admit that I am an emotional eater. But if ever there was a time and place for emotional eating, a dark and largely deserted hospital corridor at midnight is pretty much a justifiable time and a logical place to engage in the practice.

Plus, let’s look at the real numbers, here. A trip to the Tim Hortons website will tell you that, in terms of baked goods, the worst offender on the Tim’s menu is a Walnut Crunch. At 360 calories and 23 grams of fat, it’s roughly equivalent to snacking on a McDonalds double cheeseburger (430 calories and 22 grams of fat).

But not every sweet treat is quite that bad. A soon-to-be-forbidden Boston Cream donut has 250 calories and 8 grams of fat; not really that egregious, even when compared to a sanctioned sesame-seed bagel: 270 calories and 2.5 grams of fat. Will cream cheese be available or verboten? If it’s allowed, adding a bit of plain cream cheese to that bagel will add 144 calories and 14 grams of fat.

Banning donuts is all about optics, but, admittedly, optics do matter – especially in the context of food and health care. I just think that if administrators want remove a significant source of symbolic comfort in the hospital, maybe they should be obliged to replace it with something equally comforting. How about $1.50 massages and a “free hugs” kiosk?