Health dept secretary notes poor responses to laws and policies

MONITORING, regulating and implementing health policies have been poor, says Health Department secretary Dr Osborne Liko.
“The minister for Health wants us to celebrate less and work more.”
Liko was speaking for Minister Dr Lino Tom on Thursday at the launch of the Infant and Young Children’s Food Supply (Control) Act 2023.
It was first tabled as a bill in Parliament by the Prime Minister on Aug 9.
Prime Minister James Marape had said: “The bill would safeguard the nutrition of the infants and young children to reduce malnutrition rates by developing and adopting better standards of feeding products and to regulate the dealers of commercially available complementary food and feeding products.”
Liko said: “You all know as paediatricians and health workers the issues and challenges we see when infants and children less than two years old are not fed well. We see malnutrition, stunted growth and, not only that, brain development is very poor.
“We have to use these Acts already in place to regulate the health sector.
“More than 600,000 children in the country are stunted.
“The nutritional survey, which should be done every five years, is not happening. The last we conducted was in 2006. That is not good enough, go out there and make it happen,” he said.
Deputy secretary (public health) Ken Wai added: “Children are the future of our country. Nobody becomes an adult without being born and being a child first and safeguarding them at a vulnerable age is our top priority.
“By regulating the manufacturing and marketing of food products and feeding equipment for our young through regulations such as this, we can give support to our policies, where all we are to do is implement effectively,” he said.