2023-11-16 04:02:12
In the midst of recent scandals over the deaths of minors by the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare, ICBF, the Comptroller General of the Republic revealed a report that demonstrates a serious outlook for the children of La Guajira.
After an investigation by an audit team, the Comptroller’s Office determined that at least 95 of the 265 children in La Guajira reported as dying from malnutrition by 2022 were part of ICBF prevention programs.
This means that 35.84% of those children who died had already been characterized with risk factors and could have been saved from dying from diseases associated with malnutrition if the State entities had acted in a timely manner. “We determined, then, that it was not possible to detect his state of malnutrition in time,” said the Comptroller’s Office.
In fact, the report is clear in pointing out that one of the great shortcomings of the ICBF is that it does not report the case to the corresponding entities so that they can take charge of the patient’s health status.
In practical terms, the Comptroller’s Office assured that when the Family Welfare Institute identifies a child with acute malnutrition “that information is not shared with the child’s EPS or with the Ministry of Health”, two key entities to avoid more deaths.
“The entities develop their programs and projects and their results are not shared with other interested entities and they must also intervene in the process of combating child malnutrition,” the entity highlighted.
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For these cases, the Comptroller’s Office focused the risk areas in the municipalities of Uribia, Maicao, Rioacha and Manaure; all of them located in La Guajira.
In these territories, “the average mortality rate due to malnutrition is 61.88 per 100,000 children under 5 years of age between 2018 – 2022; which is higher than what is recorded in the national and departmental average,” the document states.
In addition to that, the Comptroller’s Office also warned of risks in the School Feeding Program, PAE.
According to the entity, “there was deficient monitoring and control of the contractual processes by the temporary administration and the supervisors, to guarantee compliance with the obligations and the contract,” which means that this program did not work as it should and made it easier for complications will be caused in the affected population.
On this topic, this Wednesday it was learned that the first request of the 32 elected governors to the national government was to increase resources for the PAE.
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According to the leaders, this budget increase would seek to “prioritize this Program, and thus generate adequate nutritional conditions so that our boys and girls can access classrooms and remain with relevant cognitive development.”
For now, the ICBF has not commented on this specific report from the Comptroller General of the Republic and, along the same lines, the national government has not responded whether it will accept the governors’ proposal to increase that budget.
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