Sour taste from NSW hospitals’ sugar ban

Soft drinks containing sugar are banned from NSW hospitals, despite chocolate milk and ice creams for sale at cafes there.

The ban is part of the “Healthy Choices in Health Facilities” policy introduced last year, with NSW the first state to remove sugary drinks from health facilities.

Coke, lemonade and other soft drinks containing sugar have been banned from NSW hospitals — despite chocolate milk, gelato and ice-creams being available for sale at cafes there.

NSW Health also pushed a plan for such soft drinks to be banned at rail stations, stadiums and other government facilities but The Australian understands other government departments pushed back against the move to expand the soft drink ban past schools and hospitals and the matter did not make it to cabinet.

Upper house Liberal MP Peter Phelps yesterday described the Berejiklian government’s hospital ban as “nuts” and a “terrible development … It denies choice to individuals who should have the ability to make a choice. The inconsistency and hypocrisy of what they choose to ban and … to keep is galling.

“I have a brother-in-law currently in Canberra Hospital who is fluids only,” Mr Phelps said, “and they gave him a lemonade for breakfast. (Why is it) not good enough for mum to visit her daughter and have a can of lemonade while she’s waiting?”

The ban is part of the “Healthy Choices in Health Facilities” policy introduced last year, with NSW the first state to remove sugary drinks from health facilities. “We are working towards a 5 per cent reduction in overweight and obesity rates in adults by 2020, and there’s no better way to start than on our own doorstep,” said NSW chief health officer Kerry Chant when the policy was introduced.

Yesterday, a visit to St Vincents Hospital showed the hospital had been purged of sugary soft drinks, with the canteen stripped down to Coke Zero and sugar-free organic lemonade.

Underneath the new “health­ier” additions was chocolate milk with 44g of sugar and 360 calories; orange juice with 8g of sugar; and high protein drinks with 21.3g of sugar. On shelves next to the drinks were Allen’s jelly beans, and a refrigerator full of Magnum ice-creams.

A NSW Health spokesman said yesterday: “NSW Health is taking a leadership position to make healthy choice the easy choice for our staff and visitors.

“Sugar-sweetened drinks with no nutritional value have been removed from sale, but a large range of healthier options continue to be available, such as diet drinks, flavoured milk, 100 per cent fruit juice and water.

“Staff and visitors are largely supportive — 80 per cent support the removal of sugar-sweetened drinks.”