Chainsaw damage causes delay in delivery of milk for newborns

He Ministry of Health It took more than nine months to supply infant formula milk. It is part of the 1000 days planwhich had begun to be implemented uninterruptedly in 2022 and which aims to feed newborns without medical coverage, who for various reasons cannot access breastfeeding.

In March 2022, the portfolio of Health issued a resolution to comply with the lhey 27.611known as the 1000-day law, which established the delivery of infant formula “in order to reduce mortality, malnutrition and undernutrition” for those who do not have social security or prepaid insurance.

The law provides in its article 20 that “the national State must implement the public and free provision of essential supplies for women and other pregnant persons during pregnancy and for children up to three (3) years of age, in the cases and conditions determined by the regulations, including within said coverage: (a) essential medicines; (b) vaccines; (c) milk; and (d) foods for growth and development.”

In January of this year, the ministry in charge of Mario Russo stopped purchasing and stopped sending milk to the provinces.

In the province of Buenos Airesfor example, the most populous in the country, 28 thousand kilos of formula milk are needed per month. Until now they used part of the remaining stock, but due to the interruption of delivery by the Nation, the province began the acquisition process to cover the lack. From the area of Health of the province of Santa Fefor their part, told Ámbito about a similar situation and warned about the lack of information from the Nation in this regard. These are two provinces with different political leanings, since the first is governed by the Peronist Axel Kicillof and the second by the radical Maximiliano Pullaro.

According to reports to Scope According to sources from the Ministry of Health, the purchase has been resumed and the delivery will begin in the coming weeks. They explained that they are waiting for the supplier to present the samples and then they will make the first distribution since Russo’s administration took over.

The supplier who won the tender held just in August of this year is Nutricia Bagó and now must submit milk samples for analysis to the National Food Institute (INAL)This is the last step in the process before distribution to the provinces. In total, 171 thousand kilos were purchased.

Regarding the reasons for the delay, the Ministry of Health claimed that the tendering times were within the administration’s average.

Disarticulation

Despite the provinces’ claim, the Nation has not yet officially reported on the purchase. Some districts even found out about it when this newspaper consulted them and warned that the issue was not even mentioned in the COFESAwhich met this Monday at the San Martín Palace.

Infant formula is the only possible food for those babies who cannot access breastfeeding for various reasons. Either because the mother has HIV, is decalcified, suffers from hypogalactia, is suffering from some type of addiction or another health problem that prevents her from establishing exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life, as recommended by the World Health OrganizationIn such cases, with a doctor’s prescription, the newborn should be fed with formula.

For this reason, the law established a specific policy for milk coverage. In the annex of the Regulatory Decree of the 1000-day law, it is established in article 20, paragraph c) that “all milk and/or other food formulas required by children who do not have access to breastfeeding for justified reasons and have a prescription from a doctor or team will have ONE HUNDRED PERCENT (100%) coverage.” That is, those who have social security or prepaid insurance must have their milk covered by them, otherwise, the State must guarantee it.

According to the observatory The Kitchen of Care (an intersectoral table with representatives of social and human rights organizations, unions, churches, academia, officials and legislators), although the direct transfer of income to people and particularly to children by the National Government is maintained, the chainsaw passes centrally through the disarticulation of public policies, among them, the network of articulation with the provinces established by the 1000-day law. According to the latest report of the organization, “the territorial withdrawal of the State is materialized in the closure of its federal representations: from the lack of delivery of food to organizations to the closure of the Territorial Development Centers (Ministry of Human Capital), the Access to Justice Centers (Ministry of Justice), the delegations of the Acercar Derechos program (Undersecretariat for Protection against Gender Violence), the provincial delegations of ANDIS and PAMI, the ENIA plan teams, among others.”

While the government of Javier Milei The purchase of formula milk was delayed for more than nine months, and the breastfeeding support program, which included the distribution of kits to facilitate the continuation of breastfeeding when mothers had to return to work, was completely dismantled. The kit consisted of a breast pump, reusable breast pads, a thermal bag, milk collection cups and a breastfeeding manual.

All programs related to early childhood were also discontinued: the Thousand Days Plan, the ENIA Plan, the National Early Childhood Plan (EPI) and its benefits, among others.