It’s not always politicians and economists that are the most convinced that privatization or at least commercialization are the answers to everything. Here’s an astounding piece of neo-liberal thinking from a Doctor Talarek that appeared in this week’s Polityka in an otherwise interesting article about the massive numbers of people who die – not just in Poland – of starvation after hospital visits (the sickness but also the treatment often depresses the appetite). Talarek works in a hospital that has not outsourced its catering and employs dieticians to oversee the food served up to patients but even still, every day about 20% of meals are sent back. “They eat what their families bring from home or they eat in the hospital cafeteria. Maybe if they had to pay for their meals they wouldn’t return so many of them?” Hmmm. Maybe. Or maybe if they closed their profitable little greasy spoon patients would eat what the dietician gave them. Or maybe if their patients weren’t sick they would have better appetites.

Could it not have occurred to Talarek that charging for meals for patients with appetites depressed as a result of treatment would result in more of the malnutrition problems the article describes?