But its to Aussie we go for this little story about the perils of becoming old and dependant on others.I don't look forward to it and don't have too many more years myself.

Many elderly hospital patients may suffer from malnutrition because they are actually unable to get to their food, because nurses are too busy doing other tasks to help them.

The head of the School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia, and another colleague initiated a study which observed mealtimes in the acute care facility.

They found that 20% of patients aged 65 yrs and older could not open food packaging and over a third struggled with cutlery.

Nurses who could have remedied the patients problems were unavailable to help, because they were busy elsewhere.Some patients actually waited a long time for help that never arrived.

The findings of this study will appear in the next issue of the British Journal of Clinical Nursing. It will make for some interesting reading.

The researchers said nurses could and should do more to help patients eat, It is actually about priorities - but while it doesn't take much to help patients it does take some thought and planning by administrators. Yeah right!

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