Consultant asks City Hall: Allocate more funds to counter malnutrition

CEBU, Philippines - An adequate fund for the Cebu City Comprehensive Barangay Nutrition Program is needed to sustain the program and further lower, if not eliminate, the prevalence of malnutrition in Cebu City, especially among mothers and children.

In the progress report of Dr. Florentino S. Solon, city’s consultant on nutrition, he said that the CBNP being implemented in nutritionally depressed barangays has been effective.

The success of the program, in fact, has shown that the implementing departments such as the City Health Department, the City Agriculture Department and the Department of Social Welfare and Services are capable of expanding the program in all barangays of the city if given the adequate resources.

Studies show that the prevalence of malnutrition in the four nutritionally at-risk barangays, which are the pilot beneficiaries of the program, has dropped. Three of these barangays were no longer included in the Top 10 barangays with high prevalence of malnutrition in 2010 in Cebu City.

The four barangays benefiting from the program are barangays T. Padilla, Mambaling, Kalunasan and San Roque. In last year’s Top 10 at-risk barangays, only barangay Mambaling showed lesser improvement.

The components of the program include feeding of underweight children with Vitamin A and iron-fortified food for three months, educating the mother through the Pabasa sa Nutrisyon and providing seedlings to households to make an organic vegetable garden which will ensure that food is always in the home.

Both Houses Representatives in the North and South District also funded the operation of a Nutripan bakery which produces freshly baked, nutritious fortified bread made available to children at a very low cost.

To scale up the program to all barangays in the city is a challenge for the current administration whom Solon encouraged to be willing to provide adequate funds to support the program.Solon said thatthere is a need for recruitment and training of more barangay Nutrihealth and Agriculture volunteers, more supply of food and micronutrient supplements, intensified education and information campaign and continuous distribution of seeds and seedlings.

In 2009, the city health recorded 18 maternal fatalities, 146 fetal deaths, 236 infant mortalities and 162 deaths of children one year old to five years old.

Solon said that studies have shown that 50 percent of these deaths among children are caused by malnutrition.

“We feel that one mother or one child death is sorrowful. It is recommended that each barangay should develop their own nutrition program of action by providing funds from whatever sources possible within the provision of the local government code,” Solon said. — (FREEMAN)