Residents and tenants of Heathlands Village have been prepped for their fifteen minutes of fame after joining a national campaign aimed at ensuring vegetarians, vegans and others with dietary-specific requirements have their rights respected should they lose capacity to make decisions about their daily meals.
Vegetarian4Life, a UK charity aimed at improving the quality of life of older vegetarians and vegans, will present their campaign to the Houses of Parliament in October, intending to support those with cognitive or capacity issues who require a specific diet.
Katie Butler, of Vegetarian4Life, said that “Our campaign is based around a formal inquiry which we as a charity are taking to the Houses of Parliament, regarding those with cognitive or capacity issues not being served the foods they want – for example a vegetarian with dementia being served meat.
We are creating a film, highlighting care homes across the country, together with actor Paul Higgins – of The Thick of It fame – at Parliament.
As part of that, we also want to share and promote care homes that are already providing great food for their residents – and Heathlands Village is a perfect example of the choice and respect that we want all older people to enjoy.”
Moorview House tenant, Gogi Younger, was one of the group who took part in the filming.
“I’ve been a vegetarian all my life,” she said. “The food here is very good – I’ve no complaints. We have a lot of choice and it’s really very nice indeed.”
Joining Gogi in the promotional film were residents Thelma Lapedus, Daphne Levine and Joyce Kaye – who all took to the camera with ease!
“What great fun it was,” said Daphne, “and I did my best not to giggle!”
The campaign video can be viewed here.
