Do The Crime, Eat Better
It appears that British criminals eat considerably better than the patients in National Health Service hospitals. About four times better, in point of fact.
Prisoners held in police cells are having up to four times as much spent on their food as hospital patients.
Justice Secretary Jack Straw admitted that forces are given as much as £12 a day to feed inmates, who often have a choice of food from local takeaways.
By comparison, just £3 is spent per head in hospitals a day, while 70p is spent on ingredients for a single school meal.
It costs an average of £385 to keep a prisoner in a police cell overnight.
In a letter to Tory MP Andrew Rosindell, Mr Straw said the £12 meal figure might even be exceeded in "exceptional cases".
Mr Rosindell said there would be anger among patients at the news that prisoners are better fed.
He said: "I think it's inexplicable that prisoners should be eating food which costs four times what a patient gets in the NHS."
"I want to know why only £3 per head is being spent on patients in hospital, where you would expect to have good quality food, and £12 is being spent on prison food.
"It's an astonishing revelation. I think every NHS patient will want to know why people who are up for committing a crime are being treated in a style which is inappropriate.
"It is an issue many people will find it hard to understand."
Not hard at all, old man. The health bureaucracy simply does not have to answer to you. You're merely a burden on the system to them.
World news | Gaius Thursday, 6 March , 2008
By Mockinbird, Friday, 7 March , 2008 @ 3:08 pm
That is disgusting!