The president of the West African Society of Parenteral & Enteral Nutrition (WASPEN), Dr Theresa Pounds, has raised concern over the high rate of clinical malnutrition, which poses a major threat and affecting patients’ health and recovery rate in hospitals across Nigeria.

Speaking at a virtual meeting with journalists, Dr Pounds charged the Federal, State and Local Governments to make clinical malnutrition a national healthcare priority.She remarked that while the crisis was growing, it remains largely overlooked in Nigeria’s healthcare system.

Galaxy Television reports that Dr Pounds buttressed the urgent need for
awareness, policy reform, and collaboration among healthcare stakeholders to ensure effective hospital nutrition programmes.

She affirmed that urgency of malnutrition remains a major yet overlooked challenge in both acute hospital settings and community healthcare saying, many patients, particularly those with chronic illnesses, surgical conditions, and critical care needs, suffer from inadequate nutritional support, leading to longer hospital stays, increased complications, and higher mortality rates. 

She added that one of WASPEN’s objectives was to establish interdisciplinary steering committees in major institutions, tasked with advancing clinical nutrition advocacy and intervention. Just as this will provide critical data to support national policies and drive sustainable change.

In his remarks, Chief Medical Director of National Hospital Abuja, Prof. Muhammad Raji Mahmud, represented by the LOC Chairperson, Pharm. Clara Adesola, underscored that the partnership with WASPEN would enable a comprehensive, top-to-bottom examination of nutrition-related challenges within the healthcare sector.