Unity Hospital creates on-campus food store for health care workers

Unity Hospital has created a pop-up grocery store for employees at the Greece hospital to help them out during this pandemic time. 

The store, which opened last week, provides the convenience of on-campus shopping at the end of long health care shifts while also reducing the potential of exposure to COVID-19 they might encounter while trying to shop. 

Julie Hamil, senior director of food and nutrition for Rochester Regional Health, said the food system is considering the same kind of operation at its other local hospital, Rochester General, once it identifies a space large enough to set up store goods and still allow for social distancing.  

The effort at Unity started after the administration heard comments from staff about difficulties obtaining necessities for home once they were done with their shifts. The hospital president, Douglas Stewart, shared information he had seen about other hospitals offering an on-campus store for its employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We said, ‘We can make this happen’,” Hamil said. 

The dining room of Unity’s large cafeteria has been turned into a store with the use of racks and some tables. Hamil said the staff contacted hospital food service vendors to see if they could supply consumer-size packages of the same kinds of foods they normally order in institutional sizes for the hospital. Employees ring out at the same cash registers where they had formerly paid for their lunches. Cafeteria workers run the pop-up grocery store. 

Reactions from staff, Hamil said, have been “wonderful. We’ve got nothing but just great comments from them. They really appreciate it.”

Based on employee feedback, the staff added items normally not on the cafeteria’s shopping list, including diapers, wipes, toilet paper and other paper goods. And now the cafeteria-turned-grocery-store is also offering a small selection of prepared foods, some in family size. Employees can also call ahead before leaving for the day to have fresh pizza and wings available to take home. 

“We’re just eliminating them having to make that extra stop or coming in contact with someone else who might have COVID,” Hamil said. “They’re really just going from work to home, home to work.” 

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