WANI AQILAH MUSTAFA / A159885
REFLECTION ESSAY
During my visit experience to Hospital Kajang, I was fortunate enough to have
experienced and learned new things especially on GMP and HACCP. Throughout the visit,
dietitian and officers there fully explained to us on the procedure to get certification for GMP
and HACCP for their hospital and how it been conducted. According to their explanation,
generally GMP and HACCP are food safety certifications that being certified by Ministry of
Health Malaysia based on standards and quality of hygiene. An institution needs to have GMP
certification first then proceed to HACCP. GMP stands for Good Manufacturing Practices
which is a system for ensuring that products are consistently produced and controlled under
quality standards. On the other hand, HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control
Point which a systematic preventive approach to food safety from biological, chemical, and
physical hazards in production processes that can cause the finished product to be unsafe and
designs measures to reduce these risks to a safe level.
Besides that, regarding HACCP that have been conducted at Hospital Kajang, there are
many procedures that need to be followed to achieve the standard production process. For
instance, purchasing process. When purchasing, the officers are responsible to make sure the
stocks ordered are received in a good condition including quantity and quality of the items.
This is because, it is their responsibility to ensure the safety of their foods as well as to protect
their reputation and prevent of foodborne illness among patients. In Hospital Kajang, if there
is any problem regarding receiving, the supplier will be fined and they must replace the item
as soon as possible. When receiving raw food such as poultry and fish, the officers will check
all the items properly by checking the temperature, freshness, cleanliness and have been cut
into pieces. All the vegetables also need to be clean in term of free from roots and wrapper. If
the vegetables received are withered, they need to be replaced by the supplier as possible before
11:00 am.
On the other hand, in preparing food, they will be portioned-well using measuring tools
and the temperature will be checked before sends them to the patient to ensure its quality. The
workers will distribute the food using insulated trolley to maintain it temperature. For
centralized-therapeutic diet, the tray will be labelled first prior to the preparation.
Food preparation area at Hospital Kajang’s kitchen.
Apart from that, it is compulsory to follow Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) before
entering the food production area. This PPE regulation is designed to be worn for protection
against one or more health and safety hazards. PPE including apron, non-slip shoes or covered
shoes, headcap and mouth mask. Officers and staffs at Hospital Kajang’s kitchen also need to
attend certain courses to enhance their understanding and knowledge about food safety
including catering education, demo on diet therapeutic, SOP and others.
PPE codes before entering food preparation area.
Overall, I think this visit has been very beneficial to me and my classmates especially
the application of the HACCP towards this kitchen and the management itself. I have enjoyed
this visit and feel that I have learned much from it and I am looking forward to using my newly
learned skills in the future.