{Directed at staff} Testing in a restaurant

For diabetics it's a fact of life that testing and injecting can not always happen in the ideal place.  Sometimes your in a public place, and your caught between a rock and a hard place deciding just how favorable a public establishment will accept your curse. 

 

Some are very sympathetic, others want you to run to the bathroom into a bathroom stall.  While others want you to do the testing at home and avoid their establishment all together. 

 

But this is not always possible.  Plus at the most it is not sanitary for a diabetic to test in any public bathroom.  (My Doctor said no testing in public restrooms)  Plus depending on how good of a restaurant your going too, you may end up at one, and waiting up to a hour for the meal to arrive which could do more harm to the diabetic if they tested before leaving home, or even in the vehicle before entering. This is so very true if they are on insulin.  

 

We have far more diabetics today than we did twenty years ago.  So chances of you seeing a diabetic test in a restaurant, or you even being a diabetic testing in any establishment  are greater than twenty years ago.   

You don't always have the ideal location.  Trying to be discreet is very hard to do in a public place that is packed with customers. 

 

Restaurant owners listen up! 

 

It's not fair, and your putting a diabetic at risk asking them to step into a bathroom stall to test in your restaurant.  Please talk to your personnel about this subject.  A insulin dependant diabetic has to test before they eat and they have to inject a dose of insulin.  For the most part they are discreet and don't cause a scene.  They will at times have a few drops of blood to fall.  But for the most part this is a rare incident to have happen.

Some are able to test in the car before entering.  But not all diabetics can do this.  But under no circumstances can any business tell them they can't do it!  Because quite a few diabetics have to have a very accurate, and as close to a meal as possible test done so they don't have a hypo from trying to guess the right amount of insulin.  If you insist on this otherwise then I guess you will have quite a few hypo incidents in your restaurants in the near future.  That is far worse than having a discreet diabetic at the table testing.  Please talk to your staff about this, and develop a good way to talk with your staff on how to handle this type of situation if it ever should arise.  Because if you keep telling the diabetics no, then eventually you will be loosing quite a few customers because of this.  Diabetic is not a rare word anymore.  Chances are getting higher than ever that you will have a family member that will have to deal with it.  It's not a discriminating disease.   It need not to cause problems in a restaurant when it comes to testing. It should not cause a problem in any public establishment.   Just one employee that has a problem with it can cause headaches for you.  Please attend to this. 

 

Thank you!