City Plans to Make Kosher Meat Meals Available to Patients in Municipal Hospitals

Mayor John V. Lindsay has announced that New York City plans to make available kosher meat meals to patients who ask for them in all municipal hospitals in the city. This is believed to be the first time that any municipal government in the United States has approved such a program for observant Jewish patients in municipal hospitals. Mayor Lindsay, in announcing the plan, noted that kosher food is now provided at Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn, where a pilot kosher food program was started in March, 1969, to determine the feasibility of making such a food service available to all in-patients asking for it. City officials estimated the program will cost between $100,000 and $200,000 annually for an estimated 400 to 500 Jewish patients expected to request the kosher food service. The Mayor reported that the experience at Coney Island Hospital had demonstrated conclusively that provision of kosher food does not create any special problems in hospital feeding procedures and that the pilot program had been enthusiastically approved by both hospital staff and patients at the hospital. The decision for the program followed evaluation of a survey made by Daniel Green, Deputy Commissioner of Ports and Terminals, an Orthodox Jew who undertook the survey on his own last October. Under the plan, participating hospitals purchase frozen packaged kosher meals, complete with utensils. These are heated in hospital ovens and brought unopened to the patient’s bed. Under this arrangement, no cooking is necessary and therefore special kitchen facilities are not required.