Stunting Issues Still Not Handled in a Number of Regions

INDUSTRY.co.id - Jakarta - Assistant Deputy for Nutrition, Maternal and Child Health and Environmental Health the Coordinating Ministry for Human Development and Culture, Meida Octarina said there are still local governments that pay little attention to handling the problem of stunting.

Meida, on the sidelines of a seminar titled Multi-Sector Strategy in Handling Stunting, Jakarta, said on Tuesday that there were several regional leaders who had not seen the problem of dwarfism as a priority issue that had to be resolved.

"So far, there are some (regional leaders) who want to get involved, some think that the stunting case is not a priority," Meida said.

According to her, the central government is very serious to reduce the number of dwarfs in Indonesia. There are a number of programs run by various ministries and institutions to reduce the number of cases of dwarfism in 100 districts and 1,000 villages in Indonesia.

"It depends on the willingness of the regional leader," she said.

Not only ministries and institutions that try to deal with cases of dwarfism, there are many NGOs that are also seriously trying to address this case. However, lack of supervision makes the overlapping and non-directional performance of NGOs.

"Many NGO work is overlapping. There needs to be monitoring by regional leaders, whether they are governors, regents or mayors," she said.

Based on data from basic health research (riskesdas) in 2013, the number of Indonesian children who experienced dwarfism reached nine million people or 37 percent of the Indonesian age population.

There are 15 regencies / cities recorded with the highest number of dwarf cases, namely Central Aceh (DI Aceh), Rokan Hulu (Riau), North Lombok (NTB) and NTT including East Manggarai, My West Sumba, Central Sumba, Ngada, South Central Timor and Sabu Raijua.

Furthermore, West Seram (Maluku) and Papua are Tambrauw, Intan Jaya, Dogiyai, Lanny Jaya and Sorong Selatan.

The number of children suffering from dwarfism has made the government form the National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction (TNP2K). (Ant)