For hungry patients, Boston Medical Center’s Food Pantry is just what the doctor ordered

Banner Staff

Unlike the mumps or the measles, there is no inoculation to protect against hunger and malnutrition. But thanks to folks like Latchman Hiralall and his co-workers at the Preventive Food Pantry at Boston Medical Center (BMC), there is a prescription.

Latchman has managed the Pantry, housed at the medical center’s Dowling Building at 771 Albany Street, since it opened in 2001. Open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4:40 p.m., the Pantry provides food for therapeutic diets that address a wide range of disorders often associated with malnutrition and hunger. Patients who come to the Pantry are given a “food prescription” that can be filled up to twice per month.

“We’re sort of a food pharmacy, I guess,” Latchman said.

Just like getting medication from a regular pharmacy, BMC patients must first be referred to the Pantry by a doctor, nurse or social worker in order to receive food. Once they are referred, however, they can get food not only for themselves, but also for their families.

As part of the screening process, patients are asked if their families are having problems getting adequate food to sustain a healthy diet. The referring clinician then lets the Pantry’s staff know if any family members have particular dietary needs, such as having diabetes or hypertension, or if children need extra calories in their diet because their heights or weights indicate that they are not growing properly for their age.

“We will provide appropriate food for them based on what’s written on the referral, and it’s all healthy foods,” Latchman said. “Families can pick up food here every two weeks, and we provide three to four days worth of food each visit, so a family can get a full week’s worth of food in a given month.”

Many of the families that visit the Pantry also visit other food pantries and soup kitchens in the area, Latchman said, “to piece together their needs for the month.”

“The money they save from food, they use to pay their bills, because for a lot of people, things are tough right now,” he added. “So we try to help as much as we can.”

The number of families receiving the Pantry’s services illustrates just how tough things are in Greater Boston now. The Pantry’s staff now serves over 4,000 people per month — more than six times the amount projected when it first opened in 2001.

Despite the heavy workload and the dark cloud of the ever-expanding patient population, Latchman looks at the silver lining surrounding it — that all of those people can get the nutrition they need.

“We serve between 900 and 1,000 families every month, and the number keeps growing — that’s the sad thing. But the good thing is we’re able to provide food to all these people,” he said. “We bring in more food, and try to get as much as we can in here.”

It takes a lot to feed more than 4,000 mouths each month. The Pantry takes in between 5,000 and 7,000 pounds of food each week, the bulk of which comes from the Greater Boston Food Bank. The Cambridge-based nonprofit Food for Free also provides fresh produce during the summer months.

As a “therapeutic” service, all the food provided by the Pantry is healthy, which reinforces BMC’s teachings — as Latchman said, “It wouldn’t make sense for us to give out sugary cereal when the clinicians are telling their patients that they shouldn’t be eating cereals with a lot of sugar in them” — and emphasizes the importance of developing good dietary habits, regardless of a family’s financial status.

“We have a growing problem in our community with obese kids, because junk food is cheaper than healthy food,” Latchman said. “You know, if someone’s only got a dollar, they’re more likely to go get a hamburger than something healthy. We’re trying to teach them to make healthy choices.”

Latchman is quick to share credit for the Pantry’s success with the staff of BMC’s development office, whose tireless efforts to solicit donations from local individuals, companies and organizations have fully funded the program.

The development office has also made it easy for anyone interested in supporting the Pantry to do so by making a credit card donation to BMC’s “Virtual Food Drive” through the center’s Web site, where a list of “donation levels” informs users of how much their contributions can cover.

A donation in the $50-$99 range covers 75 cans of vegetables or soup, while a gift between $250 and $499 can buy 800 boxes of macaroni and cheese. Pitching in a smaller amount is still a big help — every $10 received means the Pantry can provide two families with a week’s worth of food.

And the more families the Pantry can serve, the more opportunities Latchman and his staff have to give back to the community, which he says is “without a doubt” the best part of his job.

“I wish I could do more, but any time you can provide this kind of help to anyone, it’s always a wonderful feeling to do that,” he said.