Infuse Issue 14 October 2021 | Page 9

... it didn ’ t take long for the ideas to start flowing and balloon into something bigger than we ever envisaged .

Screen savers used throughout Christchurch Hospital . Image courtesy of Nutrition & Dietetics Christchurch Health Campus
By mid-year , it was clear COVID-19 was not leaving anytime soon . After an unnerving few months with no travel , the hopes of attending any dietetic course or conference beyond New Zealand ( let alone within New Zealand !) was farfetched . We had spent most of 2020 with our heads down preparing for the worst , upskilling on COVID-19 in the Intensive Care Unit and creating nutrition triage pathways for probable COVID-19 cases … but thankfully , the worst never came to New Zealand . So , when Dietitian Connection started promoting their inaugural Malnutrition Week ANZ campaign and asked hospitals to get involved , our team thought ‘ challenge accepted !’. We were excited to get involved and make the most of a fantastic opportunity to promote our profession , increase awareness of malnutrition and create some noise in the malnutrition space .
We promptly got a committee together to brainstorm ideas and activities . We delegated tasks and spent two whole months creating an action plan that targeted multidisciplinary teams . It went well beyond the basics of celebrating our usual awareness weeks ! Thanks to the theme ‘ Have we missed a diagnosis ?' and the amazing promotional materials developed by Dietitian Connection , it didn ’ t take long for the ideas to start flowing and balloon into something bigger than we ever envisaged .
In the lead up to Malnutrition Week ANZ , we had a feature on ‘ one minute with …. a dietitian ’ in our CEO newsletter and daily internal emails . It reached all Christchurch Hospital employees and promoted the upcoming Malnutrition Week ANZ and the activities we were organising .
© Dietitian Connection 9 Infuse | October 2021