Perth Hospital Meals supports local restaurants and frontline medical workers throughout the COVID-19 crisis

9 APRIL 2020 (PERTH): Perth Hospital Meals is a grassroots program that delivers ready-made meals from local restaurants to frontline hospital workers battling the COVID-19 crisis.

The program is entirely supported by donations from organisations and the general public. Every dollar donated goes towards buying meals for hospital clinicians and ancillary staff.

According to Mike O’Hanlon, co-creator of the Perth Hospital Meals program: “By sourcing meals from local restaurants, we also support businesses who are struggling during this difficult time. Participating restaurants and delivery drivers operate under strict nutrition, food preparation, packaging and hygiene requirements, right down to labelling ingredients and allergens to make it as easy an experience as possible for the people on the front line.”

The program ran a pilot delivery on 31 March, seeing 50 “crowdfunded” meals delivered from Northbridge eatery Bivouac to the Royal Perth Hospital ICU. Since the announcement of the pilot on Bivouac’s Instagram, Perth Hospital Meals has already received over $1000 in donations from the WA public.

Perth Hospital Meals was inspired by Frontline Foods, a similar program based in the US. Although not an official chapter of Frontline Foods, the volunteers behind both organisations maintain a close relationship to ensure activities in Perth continue to run smoothly.

Perth Hospital Meals co-creator Alex Louden says, “I'm excited to see this start to take off, and am feeling really honoured that people are trusting us with their donations. We are also looking to partner with more philanthropically minded individuals and organisations, with the hope of helping front line professionals in other sectors.”

For additional information, please refer to:

• Perth Hospital Meals website: https://perthhospitalmeals.com

• @bivouaccanteen on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/B-oj_dcjXKw/