I was raised to understand that nothing should be wasted. I was told to drink a beverage given to me leaving the glass empty. I was told to eat all food on my plate. If I did not want the quantity given, I was to get it reduced first, so that I could finish everything I started to eat or drink. The reason was that in many parts of the world many people go without enough to eat and drink, and we cannot be wasting stuff only because we can afford to. We actually cannot afford to waste any morally, because all resources are limited, and money power does not give us the power to throw away food or drink. My mother taught me this when I was small, and I have not forgotten it ever.
But I am aware that there is a class of people out there who believes that to make the glass empty or clean up one’s plate is bad manners. It is supposed to indicate that one does not have enough, that one is not satisfied and hence one eats the last morsel or drinks the last drop offered. This group believes that the correct thing to do is to leave about 10-20% of the drink or food behind, so that the host does not believe you to be poor or dissatisfied. Such people are seen to heap their plates with food in buffets and then throw away half of it.
There is nurse from this group in one of our wards. I have not observed her eating or beverage-drinking habits. But I have watched her IV fluid administration habits. I found out today that she had started a new bottle of IV fluids for a number of operated patients in our recovery ward, discarding previous bottles with about 10% of the IV fluid still there. And there was a patient who had received IV antibiotic infusion that came in a small plastic bottle. The fluid has orange color, so that residual fluid could be seen clearly. About 10% of the antibiotic was still left behind, and an infusion of Ringer’s lactate had been started. A patient losing 50 ml of saline is perhaps OK (though a waste), but losing 10% of the antibiotic is not OK. The said nurse, whose identity I don’t know, had gone somewhere and was not available for education. I hope she will be there tomorrow, so that I can advise her to restrict her etiquettes to her social eating and drinking habits, and not apply them to patients’ treatment.
