Posyandu running out of infant food supplements

JAKARTA (JP): Volunteers at several state-sponsored Posyandu, the integrated health service posts for infants and pregnant women, here strongly urged the government on Friday to soon allocate money for their activities due to the serious shortage of baby food at the centers.

The staff of the posts in Johar Baru in Central Jakarta and Utan Kayu Selatan in East Jakarta told Minister of Health Farid Anfasa Moeloek that the Rp 22,500 monthly state fund earmarked to provide free food supplement for babies of poor families in the area would be only enough to feed two infants at the most given the high prices nowadays.

"Our quota is Rp 750 for each baby per day. But today eggs are already Rp 750 each. Then who'll pay for the stove gas, Bapak Menteri?" Mrs. Suranto, a helper at Johar Baru, complained to Moeloek, who was making impromptu visits to the posts.

The female workers told the minister that the shortage of money had forced them to drastically cut down the number of patients, from infants to under-five-year-olds, for the free food supplement services.

According to Mrs. Suranto, out of an average of seven infants brought by their parents to the post for the free meal service, six of them were turned away, she said.

The volunteers therefore asked the minister to disburse the government aid package which has been earmarked for Posyandu activities as soon as possible in order to allow them to purchase adequate stocks of baby and infant rations.

Endang Purwaningsih Syamsul Bachri, another volunteer at a nearby Posyandu in the same subdistrict, told the minister that her post could provide free nutrition to two infants thanks to a fund donated by a private firm.

At the Posyandu in Utan Kayu Selatan, the minister was also told the same thing.

"Can someone imagine how can any baby or infant survives on a Rp 750 budget a day?" asked a local helper.

Volunteer Endang said that there were at least 17 severely malnourished babies of poor families in her subdistrict that badly need adequate food supplements.

"Help us, sir. The babies need the food," she told the minister and his entourage.

In response, Moeloek told the ladies not to worry. He pledged that the Posyandu aid fund, which had gone through some "bureaucratic problems", would be disbursed within a week.

According to Moeloek's staffer, Dini Latief of the ministry's nutrition directorate, the aid allocated for all such posts in the capital for the three-month period beginning January totaled Rp 3.1 billion.

"Each post in the capital should receive roughly Rp 1 million next week," Dini said.

Dini mentioned that the aid money to be earmarked for the corresponding period to all Posyandu nationwide would reach Rp 261 billion.

"Each of the 240,000 posts would receive roughly about Rp 1 million," she said. (ylt)