LUCENA CITY—Quezon Gov. David Suarez is pushing for the adoption of the province’s “First 1,000 Days of Life, Maternal and Child Healthcare Program” as a national policy for government leaders and policy-makers to resolve the national problem of malnutrition during the two-day regional symposium on “Sustainable Food Systems for Healthy Diets and Improved Nutrition” held last Friday and Saturday in Bangkok, Thailand.
“It has to be a national policy. If policy-makers, prime ministers and presidents don’t make it a national policy, how can we be assured the next generation of our county is going to be smart, more competitive and healthy in a globalized world with stiff competition? We cannot simply afford to have our children disadvantaged in their future,” Suarez said, referring to the program pioneered by the provincial government of Quezon that advocates for a package of health care and nutrition in the first 1,000 days of life of the child and its pregnant mother as contained in Quezon 1,000 Days of Life (Q1K) program.
Suarez spoke before the participants of the event organized by the Food and Agriculture Organizations of the United Nations (UN-FAO), the World Health Organization, the World Food Program and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) under the auspices of the United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition 2016-2015 and held at Bangkok Convention Centre.
Suarez highlighted the Q1K program and pointed out that the problem of malnutrition happens foremost in the first 1,000 days of the child’s life, where its mental, emotional and physical skills are first developed.
“If the mother who is child-bearing is malnourished, the water she is drinking is not clean and she is experiencing domestic violence in her family, it has absolutely a great impact on the first 1,000 days of life of her child and this is the reality everywhere. We all fight for equal society, but how can we fight effectively when we don’t address it where it happens?” Suarez asked the participants, adding such is the main reason Quezon came up with the Q1K program to make a dent in the long-term maternal health care of women in the province.
The Quezon governor, along with Vice President Maria Leonor G. Robredo, who spoke during the inaugural session, were invited to the event which bore the theme “Investing in Food Systems for Better Nutrition.”
“The UN-FAO has requested the Quezon governor to share the Q1K program in the very first Asia and the Pacific symposium on nutrition, Quezon being the first local government unit in the country to implement a comprehensive program in addressing malnutrition in the first 1,000 days of a child’s life,” provincial agriculturist Roberto Gajo said in his Facebook account of the event.
Gajo, along with the governor’s wife, Party-list Rep. Anna Villaraza Suarez of Alona; the governor’s chief of staff Webster Letargo; and Joeanne Manalo Reyes, technical nurse of the provincial health office, accompanied Suarez to the event.
The Quezon governor, after citing briefly the physical and natural resources of his province in his speech, said the priority given by the national government to nutrition is not enough and that it “should be tackled and discussed in the same context as peace and order, as the economy, as education and as social welfare because it plays a vital role in all these fields.” He added, “The government policies on nutrition are outdated and they must go in line with globalization and the Internet and how the modern world is working and thinking.”
The keynote address in the event was delivered by Dr. Jessica Fanzo, Bloomberg distinguished associate professor of global food and agriculture policy and ethics at the Berman Institute of Bioethics, who discussed about changing food environments, systems and diets in the Asia-Pacific region.
Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of the Kingdom of Thailand, the UN-FAO special ambassador for Zero Hunger in Asia and the Pacific, graced the inaugural session of the symposium.
Suarez spoke last Saturday about moving forward “the first 1,000 days of life” agenda and the role of the Quezon provincial government in promoting the mother and child health and nutrition program, which is now being implemented in the whole province.
Suarez told the participants—composed mostly of doctors, professors and specialists in food and nutrition in the Asia-Pacific region—about how during his first year in his administration as provincial governor the malnutrition level in Quezon is over 17 percent and there were no provincial and barangay nutrition action plans and by using political will he went about adopting such plan, instituting the provincial nutrition action office and barangay nutrition scholars which paved the way for reducing the malnutrition level to 9.32 percent at present.
He said at the outset he noted with dismay there is no universal measuring scale for malnourished babies in the province and that the measuring scales used in livestock are the ones being used for malnourished babies.
Suarez discussed about the Q1K program, which was conceptualized in 2014 and launched on July 8, 2015, with identified 12 pilot municipalities which pledged commitment to the program. They are Mauban, San Antonio, Tiaong, Buenavista, Catanauan, Gen. Nakar, Jomalig, Lopez, San Francisco, San Andres, Unisan and Tagkawayan.
The program, the governor said, is focused on the health, nutrition and sanitation and social care of some 1,000 poor and pregnant women who were enlisted in the program.
The program is now being implemented in the whole province, with municipal and barangay Q1K coordinators and social-welfare staff going about their tasks of monitoring the target beneficiaries who undergo free regular check-ups and together with the implementation of the provincial nutrition action plan supplemental and complementary feeding, livelihood projects to malnourished families, home-gardening system and other social services are being rendered down to the barangays in the whole province.
Suarez said about 30,000 babies are born in Quezon province a year and that with Q1K in place in the whole province, pregnant women undergo 100-percent complete immunization compared to 55 percent before the Q1K; and breastfeeding is being done by 95 percent of the women compared to 40 percent before the program.
In the Q1K program, all the child-bearing women are provided with Mama’s Book and Baby’s Book, considered “the bible” in basic health care and sanitation for the guidance of both mother and child, he added.