Nasir Shuaibu
Maimuna Sade who gave birth to twins and is currently facing a severe acute malnutrition is not finding it easy amidst the whacking economic hardship that has pushed her and other contemporaries in food poverty.
Malnutrition is high in developing countries including Nigeria while the Northern part is leading in reported cases of malnutrition among the children aged 6-23 months. It is also prevalent among children under 5. Food poverty which is said to be a lack of balanced diet and parental poverty as leading contributors. Development partners have been assisting the government in the provision of food supplements to treat the cases.
The supplement, called ‘Ready To Use Therapeutic Food’ (RUTF) is in high demand, just like a mother, Maimuna Sade whose twins are malnourished, is calling the government and its partners to prevent growing cases of severe acute malnutrition among the less privileged in the society.
Maimuna who was seen at Kofaran Ran Primary Healthcare Bauchi, with her children visibly facing wasting. She has to travel to seek for health care to save the lives of her kids. According to her, she spent between N3,000 to N4,000 on transport from her village to the closest facility to get RUTF supplements for her children and “sometimes, the commodity might be out of stock.”
She said “we're poor people, my husband is a peasant farmer and God has blessed us with five children including these twins. I'm appealing to the government and private individuals to come to our aid. Many children are dying due to the present economic hardship and poverty.
"If the government can establish more centers, that will help us not to spend more money before getting these RUTF supplements as well as reducing the rate of malnutrition cases among children," she said.
Another nursing mother, Hauwa'u Kulu Abdullahi said the rate of the cases of malnutrition among households is growing every day because of inadequate nutritional foods for the nursing mothers and their children.
Hauwau has to wake up at about 4 am, dress up her kids and head to the clinic for a queue. “Due to the large turnout of people, I come early in the morning around 5:30 to 6:00 am on the visiting day before l can get the RUTF supplements for my child.
The Facility Nutrition Officer at the Kofar Ran Primary Healthcare and Maternity Centre Bauchi, Mrs Rahila Idi Umar disclosed that cases of malnutrition among children between 06-23 months is increasing daily in the facility.
According to her, the center received not less than 100 new cases who suffered from Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) weekly and over 400 new cases in a month. She added that most of the cases received were mostly coming from the rural communities and neighbouring villages who lack the access to come to the hospital for antenatal services.
The nutrition officer pointed out that the major reason the rate is growing in number was that most of the affected victims refused to embrace the exclusive breastfeeding, family planning system. While others were due to extreme poverty who could not afford to get nutritional foods for the mothers and the babies.
She explained that, in order to complement the efforts of the government, the staff has introduced a contribution scheme where they contribute little amounts and buy some nutritional foods as a means of helping and assisting those in dire need of support whenever they come for their weekly visit.
She however, commended the government for selecting the facility as one of the RUTF malnutrition centres in the state.
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