Physicians group blasts children’s hospital for on-site McDonald’s restaurant

AUGUSTA, Ga. — The McDonald’s restaurant inside the Children’s Hospital of Georgia is part of a “misaligned” relationship that includes apparently tying the rent the restaurant pays to the hospital to sales and allows McDonald’s to make a “McDelivery” to the sick kids, according to a physician group and documents obtained by The Augusta Chronicle.

The children’s hospital was declared among “the six worst public hospital food environments” by the Physicians Committee for Re­spon­sible Medicine, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C.

The group examined 200 public hospitals and singled out those with a fast-food restaurant on campus, “which jeopardize the health of the communities the hospitals are meant to serve,” its report says.

Whether to allow the restaurant to open on the first floor of the new Children’s Hospital in 1998 “was discussed very intensively,” said Dr. Charles Linder, the hospital’s pediatrician-in-chief.

Some felt “this is a comfort food thing, it’s something the children and families will enjoy having in their recovery,” but others felt “we’re supporting an unhealthy diet by having that in the hospital,” Linder said.

“It was controversial then, but the final decision was we would give it a go,” he said.

Having the McDonald’s in the hospital shows “misaligned interests,” said Cameron Wells, the staff dietitian for the physicians group.

“Here you are in a facility that is looking to bring people back to health, and fast food really does the opposite,” she said.

Wells cited a study that found that on days people consume fast food, they tend to eat “way more calories and saturated fat specifically, which is not going to be a health-promoting.” That is a particular concern for those children who are patients, Wells said.

The contract with the hospital, obtained by The Chronicle, found that the McDonald’s can provide “value added” programs, such as “McDelivery” of food to patients.

“Children are such a vulnerable population, to have such easy access is really frightening,” Wells said.