T

he East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) administration has called on regents and mayors in the province to reactivate integrated health services posts (Posyandu) in their respective jurisdictions to help fight rampant malnutrition.

NTT provincial secretary Fransiskus Salem said the role of Posyandu was important to make sure that pregnant mothers and infants were continuously monitored through regular medical examinations.

'€œThe administration has given serious attention to resolving the problem of malnutrition. However, many areas in the province have limited access to health services because of geographical conditions,'€ Fransiskus told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

As a community-based healthcare center, Posyandu addresses basic maternal and child health problems such as family planning, antenatal care, immunization and nutritional problems, which are identified and tackled at the community level.

During 1984-1998, the Posyandu program flourished under the leadership of president Suharto and was considered as one of the best examples of community-based healthcare activity in the developing world. The program, run by trained volunteers, however, has suffered a setback and lack of support since the fall of Soeharto in 1998.

Quoting data from the provincial health agency, Fransiskus said that from January to May 2015, 11 children under the age of five had died from malnutrition. All of them lived in North Timor Tengah regency.

Of the 330,214 under-five-year-old children weighed during the same period, eight children, according to Fransiskus, were found to be suffering from marasmus and one from marasmus-kwashiorkor. Among the weighed children, 1,918 had malnutrition without abnormality and 21,134 did not get enough nutrients.

Despite the local administration launching the multibillion rupiah mother and child health revolution program in 2012, NTT has failed to properly deal with the long-standing malnutrition problem, according to Association of People'€™s Advocacy and Initiative (PIAR) executive director Sarah Lery Mboeik.

The local administration, she added, had no clear strategy to address the problem, which had been latent for 20 years.

'€œMalnutrition cases have repeatedly occurred every year in the province, but the administration prefers to ignore them. Even when there efforts, they are meant to build a good image in front of the public,'€ she said.

Malnutrition cases can be found almost in all regencies in NTT, with the most number of recent cases found in the regencies of Southwest Sumba, Kupang, South Timor Tengah and North Timor Tengah.

In 2014, for example, 2,100 children were reported to suffer from malnutrition. Fifteen of them have since died.

South Timor Tengah Regent Paul Mella recently confirmed that residents of Toineke, Tuafanu, Kiufatu and Oni latent in Kualin district and Oebelo subdistrict in South Amanuban district had been suffering a food crisis since early this year.

He, however, blamed the food scarcity on a lack of rain that led to harvest failures. With good irrigation facilities, he said, in the future no harvest failure was expected to occur.

South Timor Tengah Legislative Council (DPRD) deputy speaker Alex Kase, however, accused the local administration of intentionally hiding the fact there was a food crisis. He, for example, said the regency had been struggling with harvest failures since 2000, and not just recently like the local administration claimed.

'€œWhen the media reported that people were famished, the administration said that it was a lie. This means that the administration wanted to cover up the problem,'€ he said.