Many foods such as vegetables, fruits, protein-rich sources, and healthy fats help in healing and recovery. RICHARD A. REYES
MANILA, Philippines — Health advocates from public and private sectors are pushing for enhanced nutrition care in hospitals nationwide, according to Philippine think tank, Stratbase Institute.
In a statement on Monday, Stratbase said the advocates are urging for the “improved implementation of the Nutrition Care Process (NCP), a standardized approach utilized by registered nutritionist-dietitians (RNDs) and healthcare professionals to thoroughly evaluate, diagnose, treat, and monitor patients.”
The experts who attended the recent roundtable discussion organized by Stratbase and Universal Health Care (UHC) Watch at the Asian Institute of Management Conference Center highlighted the importance of nutritional care in expediting a patient’s recovery and discharge from hospitals, as they claimed that “food is medicine.”
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Stratbase said the forum, titled “Strengthening Nutrition Integration in the Health System: Evaluating the Nutrition Care Process in the Philippines,” gathered representatives from the Department of Health, the Board of Nutrition and Dietetics of the Professional Regulation Commission, as well as professionals from both public and private hospitals.
Effective method
“NCP has been shown to be an effective method for treating various medical conditions,” said Dr. Aguedo ‘Troy” Gepte IV, a nutrition consultant and author of a policy paper commissioned by the Stratbase Institute to assess the integration of NCP within the Philippine healthcare framework.
“There is a high level of awareness and positive attitudes toward the NCP and NCP terminology. However, actual implementation varies and is influenced by several factors, both individual and contextual,” he added.
In 2019, the Department of Health issued Administrative Order (AO) No. 2019-0033, outlining the protocols for NCP, which mandates patients nutrition screening upon admission and those required to undergo medical nutrition therapy.
Virgith Buena, chairperson of the Board of Nutrition and Dietetics at the Professional Regulation Commission, explained that “nutritional diagnosis differs from a medical diagnosis as it involves identification and labeling of an existing nutrition problem by an RND, which may evolve.”
Gepte, however, revealed that AO implementation has several barriers, such as “inadequate staffing, limited experience, and conflicts with existing hospital nutrition care systems,” adding the need for legislation to facilitate NCP’s implementation in all hospitals.
Meanwhile, Dr. Jose Rodolfo Dimaano Jr., Co-Lead of the Abbott Center for Malnutrition Solutions, pointed out that nutrition is a fundamental human right, and access to its interventions would help the country address issues of malnutrition.
“We believe that the Nutrition Care Process should be implemented properly and across the continuum of care. When I say continuum of care, I’m talking about when the person is not yet hospitalized — let’s say the elderly person is still in the community — there should be preventive measures, education,” Dimaano said.
“Then, once the patient gets admitted to the hospital, it’s more critical to aggressively treat the patient through nutritional interventions. And post-discharge, there should be monitoring and still continuous care given to that patient,” he added.