27 Nov 2022

Mmea and Khwee have the highest percentage of underweight children in Boteti Sub-district at 24.9 and 24.8 respectively while  the sub-district figures are above the national average of 2.9 per cent, district dietician, Ms Lorato Gabana has said.

Briefing Boteti Sub-district councillors last week, Ms Gabana said Mokobaxane and Letlhakane followed with 8.23 per cent and 7.77 per cent respectively.

She said statistics collected from 12 health facilities in the sub-district, including mobile facilities, showed an increase.  She noted that hot spot areas were Mmea, Khwee, Mokobaxane and Letlhakane.

She also said a WHO/UNICEF package was developed in 2012 with the objective to increase access to essential health services. She said the package addressed four critical areas such as preventing illness or injury and responding to illness.

She noted that the Ministry of Health, in collaboration with UNICEF, introduced a system that strengthened routine data collection and analysis through improvements in the existing health information system.

She said the system enabled service providers to better identify and target malnourished children as well as to trigger timely targeted intervention in response to changes in nutritional status at individual, community, district and national level.

She added that the system was piloted in 2019 at Letlhakane Clinic, Boitekanelo Clinic and Mmatshumo Health Clinic.

Ms Gabana also noted that a support group, Ngwana Bokamoso, was formed in Letlhakane with the aim to prevent and combat malnutrition in the community. She said the support group also raised awareness on malnutrition through community nutrition education programmes and direct feeding for malnourished children.

She noted that since the inception of direct feeding in April, underweight children had decreased from 5.99 per cent in April to 4.62 per cent in June and 3.48 per cent in July.

Ms Gabana also informed councillors that 112 children were screened for underweight and that 75 were moderately underweight while 37 were severely underweight.

She also said the Ministry of Health, in collaboration with the Department of Social Protection, implemented a relief measure of providing a special food basket to underweight children under five years in areas with a underweight prevalence rate of at least 10 per cent.

Khwee and Mmea, she said, were selected and that the programme had been planned to start last month. She noted that at least 75 children from Khwee and 30 from Mmea had been submitted to relevant authorities for assessment.

Each eligible child, she said, would be supplied with a food basket worth over P800 per month, and that those already benefitting from other packages would be provided with commodities not available in their current food basket.

Commenting after the briefing, Councillor Thomas Kgethenyane of Moremaoto/Khumaga said he was against the idea of feeding children at the kgotla shelter, arguing that it was discriminatory.

Cllr Mothusi Molaodi complained that the feeding programme had not been introduced in Khwee as it had been in areas like Mmea. ENDS