With only a handful of human milk banks in the country, the Quezon City council has approved on third and final reading a measure that will lead to the creation of breast milk banks in all government-run hospitals offering pediatric care in the city.
Under the “Quezon City Human Milk Bank Ordinance,” the pediatrics department in each government-owned hospital will set up a section that will collect, screen, process, store and distribute donations of breast milk.
It also calls on the staff of the human milk bank sections to coordinate with breast-feeding support groups and barangay health workers in the city to encourage lactating mothers to donate their milk.
The milk bank, according to the ordinance, shall be operated on a nonprofit basis but a minimal processing fee may be charged for the screening process and administrative costs.
However, “inability to pay for the fee shall not be a reason for [turning away] patients in need [of the milk],” it added.
Those expected to benefit from the ordinance are infants confined in intensive care units, pediatric wards, pay wards and emergency rooms due to prematurity, malabsorption, feeding intolerance, immunologic deficiencies, congenital abnormalities or post-operative surgical conditions.
Service or private patients who are preterm, post-surgical or critically-ill newborns and infants in disaster and calamity-stricken areas, however, will be given priority.