Pemkot Palu Makes 33 Locus Villages For Handling Childhood Dwarfism

PALU - The Palu City Government, Central Sulawesi Province has designated 33 of the city's 46 urban villages as the locus for handling child stunting or stunting cases in 2022.

"Next year, Palu will be one of seven regencies/cities in Central Sulawesi Province to be the locus of child stunting, therefore the local government is preparing a program design," said Head of Public Health of the Palu City Health Office, Indrawati, who was contacted in Palu, Antara, Wednesday, December 15th.

To accelerate the decline in stunting cases in the future, his party will intervene with an 11-indicator approach. Among them are the coverage of pregnant women receiving supplementary food assistance (BMT), then the coverage of pregnant women receiving blood-added tablets.

Furthermore, toddlers with light weight will also receive BMT intervention, the number of visits by pregnant women and toddlers at the Posyandu, the coverage of pregnant women carrying out complete examination activities as instructed by the Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) that complete examinations be carried out six times.

"Another intervention is the provision of vitamin A to children twice a year according to the direction of the Ministry of Health. Then for coverage for babies from zero to 11 months, they receive basic vaccination services, including additional iron services for toddlers experiencing diarrhea and this service during childbirth," said Indrawati.

He explained that efforts to accelerate the handling of stunting were carried out across Regional Apparatus Organizations (OPD) according to their respective fields. Therefore, simultaneous work was needed in this acceleration so that future performance achievements would provide good results.

In addition, he said, the Palu City Government took a convergence approach to prevention and control of stunting.

"Out of the 20 indicators, 11 of them are in the Health Service. Data from the Palu Population Control and Family Planning (P2KB) Department states that families with the potential for stunting in Palu are quite large, so massive prevention efforts must be carried out," said Indrawati.

He added, the local government's target in 2031 Palu is zero stunting, with this target it is hoped that it will motivate agencies to increase their handling efforts quickly and precisely.

"The city government is very optimistic that this case will be handled properly, so that Palu is free from stunting and people live healthier," he said.