Dietetics

General Information

Description of Service

Dietitians provide advice based on scientific evidence. They are experts in assessing the nutritional needs of people and planning the appropriate dietary care for them. The dietitians at Maroondah Hospital provide nutrition and dietetic services to hospital patients, staff and students by working closely with the health care team.

Our Maroondah Hospital dietitians participate in the Dietitians Association of Australia Accrediting Practising Dietitian (APD) program. This is a program of continuing professional development.

Services Provided

• Provide nutritional care for over 600 hospital patients each month during their inpatient stay. This might involve special diet provision, assisting to improve intake of food and fluids, offering nutritional supplements, planning tube feeding, education in how to improve your diet or how to manage a medical condition with diet and planning for nutritional care after discharge
• Provide dietary advice at our outpatient clinic and at the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) clinic
• Assist people in looking after the diet component of their diabetes management through individual consultations and group programs at the Maroondah Hospital Diabetes Education Centre
• Work with Hotel Services to regularly review the quality of the food and special diets provided at Maroondah Hospital
• Care for patients in the community who need tube (gastrostomy) feeding through our Home Enteral Nutrition Program
• Develop and review dietary education material provided to patients
• Work closely with Speech Pathologists in providing the right consistency of food and fluids for patients to consume
• Train student dietitians and nursing students
• Are a resource for the hospital in the planning and provision of nutrition services

Staff

Our department consists of a Dietetics Manager, with dietitians responsible for hospital wards and services across the acute, aged care and community health programs. We offer clinical placements to student dietitians each year.

Dietitians at Maroondah Hospital have specialty qualifications in enteral therapy and diabetes education, and years of experience in providing hospital dietary care. They are valuable resource people in all matters pertaining to nutrition.

Accessing Dietetic Services

Outpatients

Outpatient consultations are available to patients of Maroondah Hospital only. Fees for Outpatient consultations are charged in accordance with Department of Human Services guidelines. Enquiries about outpatients should be made to the Allied Health Receptionist on 9871 3511. Information about external dietetic services is also available.

People with diabetes needing dietary advice should contact Maroondah Hospital Diabetes Education Centre on 9871 3394. The Diabetes Education Centre accepts referrals from the community and from your doctor or specialist.

Inpatients

Inpatients may ask to see a dietitian or be referred by a doctor, nurse or other member of staff for nutritional assessment, special diets, tube feeding, oral nutrition support, education and dietary counselling.

Telephone advice

Dietitians will provide information to the general public on nutrition. We regret that we cannot make recommendations on individual dietary concerns, but we can suggest where to seek further advice.

Please call (03) 9871 3511

Careers as a Dietitian

For information on training as a dietitian, visit the Dietitians Association of Australia web site www.daa.asn.au for further information. A brochure entitled "Choosing a Career in Dietetics" is available from the Dietitians Association of Australia.

Links

• Dietitians Association of Australia website www.daa.asn.au
• Nutrition Australia website www.nutritionaustralia.org