“There was one woman—it was a VIP tasting menu, I remember this: She just threw up on the table, in the middle of an extended tasting menu. They cleaned it up, and she “boot-and-rallied.” She finished the meal.”

That’s what one staffer told Christine Whitley of New York Magazine about the experiences in fancy-pants New York restaurant, Per Se.

“We can accommodate wacky people, and for the most part, 95 percent of the guests are well behaved. Then you have the couple that goes and has sex in the bathroom—that happens quite a lot. You have people who throw up—they throw up a lot. … You see people cheating on their spouses, overhear bits of conversation. …

"Spitting in the food doesn’t happen in New York restaurants. Honestly, people wouldn’t do that to the food. At Per Se, the cooks work 70 or 80 hours a week and make next to nothing, but they work because they want to cook. And to do that to something, to spit in prep work that someone has spent eight hours of work on—blood, sweat, and tears and all—it’s just not done. And if something drops on the floor, it gets thrown away. With the recent Department of Health crackdowns, those letter grades are bought—by that, I mean every restaurant that has an A has either an in-house specialist or a specialist they’ve hired. Before the DOH inspections, every high-end restaurant has four or five in-house inspections, and then everyone has their own set of fire drills—you put on hats and gloves when the inspector comes, you hide things away. …

“The staff is incestuous. I think half the staff is dating the other half of the staff right now. I mean, you spend 60 hours a week with these people, so what do you think is going to happen?”

Money is a good way to get an administrator’s attention.

Monty Python figured this out in 1983’s, The Meaning of Life.

In The Miracle of Birth bit, as a laboring woman is wheeled into the delivery room surrounded by the machines meant to assist birth, the hospital administrator, Mr. Pycroft, arrives.

“Wonderful what we can do nowadays.
[ping]

“Aah! I see you have the machine that goes 'ping'.

“You see, we lease this back from the company we sold it to, and that way, it comes under the monthly current budget and not the capital account.
[applause]

“Thank you. Thank you. We try to do our best. Well, do carry on.”

Tina Rosenberg of the N.Y. Times reports on the health blog today that handwashing compliance in hospitals generally sucks, provides a thorough overview of why it sucks, and notes that hospitals are now paying more attention to the matter: money.

“In 2008, hospitals were told that Medicare would no longer reimburse them for the cost of treating preventable hospital-acquired conditions it calls “never events,” which includes many kinds of hospital-acquired infections. The new health care reform bill instructs states to do the same with Medicaid. Many insurance companies also now refuse to pay for never events. This tends to concentrate the minds of hospital executives. …

“In the last year or two, several new ways to promote hand-washing – all things that beep – have made their debut: HyGreen, BioVigil, Patient Care Technology System’s Amelior 360 and Proventix’s nGage are some of them, but there are others. Some are spinoffs of systems widely used to track hospital equipment (this is how hospitals can find a wheelchair when it is needed). All employ new technology that can detect alcohol — which in hospitals is a component not only of rubbing gel but also soap.

“They work like this: every health care worker wears an electronic badge. When she washes her hands or uses alcohol rub, a sensor at the sink or dispenser or her own badge smells the alcohol and registers that she has washed her hands.

“Another sensor near the patient detects when her badge enters a room or the perimeter around a patient that the hospital sets. If that badge shows that her hands were recently washed, it displays a green light or something else the patient can see. If she hasn’t washed, her hands, the badge says so and emits a signal to remind her to do so. The sensor also sends this information to a central data base. Information about the hand-washing practices of a particular unit, shift or individual is instantly available.”

There is some evidence the systems work, but they are also expensive.

And sorta useless without a culture change.

Rosenberg writes any technological fix should be accompanied by “creating a culture of accountability, redesigning hand hygiene systems to make hand-washing easy and automatic, and other strategies.”

We prefer shock and shame.
 

Celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal’s latest attempt at PR salvation in this morning’s Daily Mail is another crass and superficial effort to blame others for the March 2009 norovirus outbreak that sickened 529 at The Fat Duck restaurant. Heston has a memory of convenience in yet another quest for salvation and, sympathy while pushing a new fancy restaurant and cookbook. Here’s a reminder.

“I thought my world was caving in.”

So did the 529 people barfing and confirmed as having norovirus from your Fat Duck.

“I’m just a chef who likes asking lots of questions.”

Not enough questions – like where those oysters came from, and if I’m going to use them in dishes such as jelly oyster with passion fruit and lavender, should they be cooked so people don’t barf?

“Blumenthal is still seething about the report into the incident published 12 months ago by the Health Protection Agency (HPA), which he believes maligns his £150-a-head establishment and his business methods. ‘The report insinuated things that I found very frustrating. For example, that staff were back at work while they were physically ill. Our staff training manual very clearly lays out a 48-hour return-to-work policy – you don’t come back until 48 hours after you feel better.’”

At the time of the outbreak, Blumethal reported conducting his own testing of staff and customers, and stated “so far it is categorically not food poisoning." Wrong.

Blumenthal also tried out the but-our-training-manual-says defense last year. The quotes are eerily similar to what he said in 2009. Maybe they were just lifted.

The HPA report did state ongoing transmission at the restaurant—leading to illnesses from January 6 to February 22—was thought to have occurred through continuous contamination of foods prepared in the restaurant or by person-to-person spread between staff and diners or a mixture of both. Investigators identified several weaknesses in procedures at the restaurant may have contributed to ongoing transmission including: delayed response to the incident, the use of inappropriate environmental cleaning products, and staff working when ill. Up to 16 of the restaurant’s food handlers were reportedly working with norovirus symptoms before it was voluntarily closed.

“I took the decision to close the restaurant within 24 hours, as a precautionary measure. It was a financial blow but I couldn’t consider money at the time. … I felt desperately sorry for all the people who suffered. My instincts were to contact everyone personally and apologise but I was advised against this by my lawyers, insurers and official bodies conducting investigations. It was extremely frustrating, but my hands were tied.”

Blumenthal is arguing he took a financial blow, but wouldn’t risk a financial blow and say I’m sorry, which was the decent human thing to do instead of hiding behind barristers and bureaucrats.

When Blumenthal did finally issue an apology on September 25, 2009—seven months after the outbreak was discovered and more than two weeks after the Health Protection Agency report was released—it suggested that he viewed an empathetic apology as an admission of guilt.

"I am relieved to be able to finally offer my fullest apologies to all those who were affected by the outbreak at the Fat Duck,” said Blumenthal, “It was extremely frustrating to not be allowed to personally apologise (sic) to my guests until now. It was devastating to me and my whole team, as it was to many of our guests and I wish to invite them all to return to the Fat Duck at their convenience [for a free meal]." The apology was too late and again failed to accept responsibility for the aspects of the outbreak that were under the chef’s control—namely, acquiring seafood from unsafe sources and allowing sick employees to handle food.

Television presenter Jim Rosenthal, who was sickened, called Blumenthal’s response, “pathetic.”



“He has basically attempted to re-write the HPA report and its conclusions in his favour. It is pathetic and a complete PR disaster. There isn’t even a hint of apology.

“ At first I was extremely sympathetic to Heston Blumenthal, but the way this has been mishandled beggars belief. I could not believe what I was reading in this email – it was like we had been sent different reports. I am taking them to court and a lot of other people are too. A simple apology might have ended all this a long time ago.”

Another diner blogged, “I’m appalled because I was so entranced by Heston Blumenthal and he comes across as being very decent and clever. We had been so ill and, at the very least, we expected some kind of acknowledgment. We really thought they would be interested in what had happened to us.”

Boxing promoter Frank Warren commented, "Everything was fabulous about the evening - the food, the setting, the service, it was unbelievably good but unfortunately, afterwards, all of us were ill. … Since then we have not heard anything from the restaurant at all. I am very disappointed and I know that the people I went with are very disappointed with the feedback"

Blumenthal is now gearing up for the opening of a lavish new restaurant, Dinner, at London’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel in December. He is also working on a new, simpler cookbook, Heston At Home, which will be out in a year’s time.

Heston, you need to get a lot better at this PR thing if you expect either to sell.

My “mind went to dark places.”

We’ve all been to dark places; grow a pair and admit what went wrong rather than incessantly whining while promoting. Then maybe you’ll get some sympathy.

My favorite John Cleese movie is not one of the Monty Python things, or a Fish Called Wanda, or the Faulty Towers TV bits. It is the rarely seen and vastly underappreciated 1986 effort, Clockwise. It is so … British.

“Brian Stimpson (John Cleese) is the headmaster of a comprehensive (high) school in England. He sets himself, his staff and pupils very high standards. On the way to a conference at which he is to talk, all manner of disasters strike."

Brian Stimpson came to mind after This is Croydon Today reported that Cumnor House School, in Pampisford Road, South Croydon, has been hit by an outbreak of campylobacter.

Headteacher Peter Clare-Hunt, who I am totally envisioning as John Cleese, insists there is no proof that the bug came from the school kitchen.

"We have had five confirmed cases of campylobacter which is a type of food poisoning.

“The recommendation that the environmental health and independent food hygiene consultant made are all very minor and by minor I mean temperatures of fridges. But there is nothing sinister.

"We're talking about food storage, temperatures of fridges not being too high or too low, making sure we don't prepare raw meat alongside salads.”

Yes, John-Cleese-in-Clockwise character: don’t prepare raw meat alongside salads.

Headteacher Peter Clare-Hunt also said,

"In terms of tracing this back to the kitchen that will never be proved one way or the other."

How reassuring.