Another step towards fight against Child Malnutrition
Lakshmi is a 15 months old daughter of Radheshyam Gameti
from Negadia Bheel Basti at Rajsamand. Lakshmi was severely malnourished with a
weight of mere 3.2 kg with 2.3 as Haemoglobin count. Even after the
repeated efforts of Mangilal, the KHUSHI coordinator at Anganwadi Centre,
Lakshmi’s parents did not take her to the hospital for the treatment. It is
only when KHUSHI nutrition specialist, Ms. Shweta Dave intervened, they
admitted her to the MTC Centre at Nathdwara. But when Lakshmi’s health got
critical, KHUSHI team got her admitted to the hospital and initiated her
treatment with professional team of doctors. Lakshmi required Blood for
her quick recovery. As she had rare Blood Group – AB –ve, different channels like
social media were utilized to request people to donate blood.
Finally, the help reached and now Lakshmi is at recovery
stage.
According to a status report on the Anganwadi (day care
centre) programme, officially known as ICDS, about 2.3 cr children in India, up
to 6 years of age are suffering from undernourishment and are under-weight,.
Despite many years to India’s independence, where country has
socio-economically developed, child malnutrition problem has remained unchanged
for years.
Poverty is not the only cause of malnutrition, it may be an
important cause due to lack of adequate food but lack of education and
resources to care for their children sums up the problem of Malnutrition.
One positive change that Lakshmi’s incident brought was that
lot many cases of undernourishment from her village came into limelight and
children were admitted to MTC Centre of Nathdwara for the treatment with the
help of KHUSHI team.
Hindustan Zinc’s Child Care Campaign – “KHUSHI” has always believed in creating awareness and to fight against
malnutrition in children. By saving life of Lakshmi, it has only strengthen
their mission to make India a Child malnourished free nation.
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