Banff Mineral Springs Hospital enhances seniors’ quality of life through Meals on Wheels program

When Banff resident Jos Storm returned home from hospital in Calgary after suffering a broken hip on Canada Day 2022, she was relieved to learn that she wouldn’t have to worry about cooking meals for herself.

In the months following her discharge, Jos, who lives on her own, would receive three deliveries a week from Banff Meals on Wheels, enabling her to focus on her recovery without worrying about meal preparation. Nearly two years later, she’s still benefiting from the program, receiving a single delivery of two meals every week.

“I didn’t have to ask for it,” says Jos, now aged 90. “When I left the hospital after a month, I was informed that I would get food delivery. They just took care of it for me.”

A program run by Covenant Health through Banff Mineral Springs Hospital in collaboration with the Town of Banff, which provides the transportation, Banff Meals on Wheels offers nutritious, low-cost meals to around 15 recipients across the region. In operation for more than 20 years, the program makes up to three deliveries a week — on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays — helping senior citizens and other recipients referred by hospitals remain self-sufficient.

Leading this program is Linda Calabrese, manager of nutrition food services at Banff Mineral Springs Hospital. A Red Seal journeyman chef who worked in Switzerland before embarking on a long career in Banff’s hospitality sector prior to joining Covenant Health, Linda now oversees all food preparation at the hospital, including meal preparation for the Meals on Wheels program.

Linda takes obvious pride in the quality of the meals her team prepares.

“It’s quite a large meal that people are getting,” she says. “With every meal, you get two proteins, vegetables and a starch as well as two desserts, two snacks and two pieces of fruit. It’s the same food that we're cooking here for the hospital, and we cook mostly from scratch, so people are getting freshly prepared food with quality ingredients. The cost is low at $8.50 per meal, and we’re able to further subsidize these meals through a grant we received through the Covenant Foundation.”

Covenant Foundation has committed more than $110,000 to Banff Meals on Wheels since 2017 and has been funding it consistently for the past few years.

Meals provided through the program are packed up cold so recipients can take out what they want to eat and heat it themselves. In addition to being fresh, nutritious and substantial, these meals are diverse and customizable to various dietary needs. Vegetarian and vegan options are always available, as well as texture modification — meals can be provided in pureed or minced form. The meals are also, as a rule, low sodium, low sugar and low fat, emphasizing heart-healthy cooking.

“It’s definitely healthier than what you’d get in a restaurant,” Linda says.

While Banff Meals on Wheels serves some younger people who may be recovering from surgery and need short-term support, most of its recipients are seniors who, like Jos, live independently and wish to continue doing so for as long as possible. These seniors often live far away from immediate family and have limited community support systems and, thus, must do all their own grocery shopping and meal preparation — an enormous burden on an elderly person recovering from an illness or injury.

“Banff is one of those communities that people typically move to from elsewhere, so people are often far away from family,” Linda says. “I often talk to family members who live out of province or are otherwise not in the community who express their gratitude that they know that their elderly family member is receiving nutritious meals on the regular, whether it's once, twice or three times a week.

“We know anecdotally that people are very happy with the program and that it’s helping a lot of people age in place and not have to move out and into a care facility.”

Jos, whose closest family members live in Kimberley and Revelstoke in the BC interior, concurs with this assessment of Banff Meals on Wheels.

“I always look forward to my meals,” she says. “I never know what’s coming; it’s always a surprise. Every week it’s something different, and most of the time it’s things I never would have cooked for myself. I never get tired of any of it. People have the idea that if it’s hospital food, it must be bland and boring, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Anybody who gets offered this program should use it and not think it can’t be good because it comes from a hospital.”

The Banff Meals on Wheels program is accessible by referral. If you are a senior citizen in the Banff region and you think you would benefit from this program, ask your primary care provider about it.