GENERAL SANTOS CITY—The provincial government of South Cotabato is planning to put up a community-based facility that will provide intervention for acute and severely malnourished children.
Ma. Ana Uy, acting head of the Provincial Social Welfare and Development Office, said Thursday they are currently drawing up a plan for the establishment of a Nutri-Village through Public-Private Partnership or PPP.
A Nutri-Village, is a facility that caters to the rehabilitation of malnourished children in a community setting, with clinical interventions, Uy said.
The move aims to ensure the proper treatment and ensure the full recuperation of children with “severely acute malnutrition cases.”
“An ideal location for a Nutri-Village is near a hospital or a rural health unit so it would be easy for doctors to monitor the (malnourished) children,” Uy said.
The official said they are considering a portion of the Upper Valley Community Hospital compound in Surallah town as site for the facility.
She said the hospital is a strategic catchment area because of its proximity to the towns of Lake Sebu and Tboli, which have posted high prevalence rates of severe malnutrition.
Uy said they are also eyeing T’boi town as alternative site and set to present a proposal to the municipal government.
A project briefer said a Nutri-Village is a compound where a family with a severely malnourished child or children could stay for six months while undergoing medical attention.
The Nutri-Houses in the village will serve as temporary homes for the families, who will be given opportunity to go gardening or poultry raising.
In 2016, the Provincial Nutrition Office reported around 3,000 underweight children in the entire province.
It said 602 of them were severely underweight and needs focused interventions.
But overall, the province’s malnutrition prevalence rate has been declining steadily in the last three years, from 7.25 percent in 2014 to 5.15 percent in 2016.(AC/PNA)
