Child panel spots severely malnourished kid in Madhya Pradesh

Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Child Commission has spotted a severely acute malnourished child in a village barely 40 km from Bhopal, causing embarrassment to the state government. Member of the state child commission, Brijesh Chouhan, has found a 4-year-old child weighing barely three kg in the Junapani village under Berasia block in Bhopal district and has drawn the attention of local district administration to it seeking immediate medical help.

“The child was identified as severe malnourished one year ago. His condition has worsened due to lack of medical attention, turning him into severely acute malnourished now”, Mr Chouhan told this newspaper on Thursday. Mr Chouhan drew attention of Bhopal district collector and chief district medical officer to the case and sought the child’s admission in the Nutrition Rehabilitation Centre (NRC) for treatment.

The child was on Thursday admitted in the smart NRC in All India Institute of Medical Services (AIIMS), Bhopal, as the NRC run by the state government here lacked adequate infrastructure to treat such cases, official sources said. According to Mr Chouhan, the child hailed from a very poor family.

While his father is physically challenged, his mother is suffering from mental illness.

The district women and child welfare officer Ram Gopal Yadav told reporters here that the child was admitted in local NRC a year ago. But, his father later withdrew him from the Centre. “I had taken my child out of NRC a year ago since I had found no improvement in his condition”, Mr Chouhan quoted the child’s father as saying.

Madhya Pradesh has earned the dubious distinction of having highest number of malnourished children in the country.

According to the latest official report, over 18 lakh children in the state have been identified malnourished. Of them, 10.84 lakh have been found severely malnourished and 1,19, 574 have been detected as severely acute malnourished.