NTT acknowledges malnutrition problem
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The number of children who have died because of malnutrition in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) province since January this year has reached 32, nearly three times more than the figure reported by the local health office.
The new figure was revealed on Saturday by NTT governor Piet A. Tallo, who had initially downplayed the problem, during a meeting with Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Alwi Shihab and Minister of Social Services Bachtiar Chamsyah. The meeting, which was held to seek ways of resolving the severe malnutrition problem in the province, was attended by some 350 local government officials.
Piet said the big difference in the figures highlighted a lack of coordination among local government officials, which had resulted in a slow response to the malnutrition problem in the province.
He gave as an example the fact that the province-owned hospital had only reported deaths related to malnutrition after the press started carrying headline stories about the problem two weeks ago.
"If they had reported sooner, then action could have been taken since earlier this year ... This is because the staff at the lower levels are not doing anything," Piet said as quoted by Antara.
He explained that in addition to the 13 victims found in the regencies of North Timor Tengah, East Sumba, Belu and West Manggarai, 10 had also been reported by Kupang Hospital, and 9 by non-governmental organization Care International.
The number of deaths could rise if no immediate action is taken as thousands of children in 16 regencies of the province are reported to be suffering from malnutrition-related diseases such as marasmus (lack of carbohydrate), kwashiorkor (lack of protein), and combinations of the two.
Meanwhile, minister Alwi said that the malnutrition crisis in NTT was caused by two main factors: drought and poverty.
He added that the poor work ethic among local government officials had further exacerbated the problem as the bureaucracy failed to respond swiftly to the crisis.
"From the reports submitted by the regents, we can conclude that the work ethic among government officials is low, thus aggravating the (malnutrition) problem," Alwi said.