Infant Milk Disappears From Clinics?

GALE NGAKANE
Correspondent | Monday May 26, 2008 00:00

In a telephone interview from her office in Gaborone last week, the Director of Primary Health Care, Dr Refeletswe Lebelonyane, said she was not aware there was a shortage of milk in the clinics.

'We have never had any complaints. If there were any problems, they would have let us know. We are not aware that there is no milk in clinics,' she said.

Monitor could not obtain a comment from the Francistown City Clerk who was said to have been still at the full council meeting when contacted.

This is in relation to milk that is given to children born of HIV/AIDS-infected mothers. It is said that such children are given the milk from birth until they reach 12 months, but some mothers are complaining that their children have not been given the milk for the past three months. One of the mothers who spoke on condition of anonymity said the milk had played an important role in the upkeep of her child.

'Since birth, she was being given six tins of Nan milk per month. My child was growing quite well. Her scale was always moving up. I am now worried that it will start to dip as we do not have enough money to always buy her the milk from the shops.

'It is not that we have developed a dependency syndrome because of the milk which we were getting free of charge. It is just that we should have been made aware before hand that they (clinic authorities) were going to stop supplying our children with milk.

'As it is now, we are faced with having to divert money that we had budgeted for something else towards buying milk for the baby,' said the mother whose baby is seven months old.

Another mother said the situation was so bad that of recent, when they ran out of the milk, for a whole week, their baby had to be given milk straight from the udder of a cow.

'When the Nan milk ran out, I took my baby to the clinic and they told me that the milk was finished. I had no money to buy from the shops because I had not budgeted for such a situation. Besides, I am not working and the father of my child stays in Gaborone.

There was no time for me to let him know that he must buy milk for the baby.

'Fortunately, we have since bought milk for the baby. It is two months now and we have not gone to the clinic to find out whether they can give our baby milk again. The way they told me that there was no milk, it was as if I had gone there to beg for it. It was not as if my baby was entitled to it (the milk), 'said the mother of three cradling her eight months old baby.

Reports coming from Matsitama, a settlement about 100km west of Francistown is that parents of babies supplied with milk by a local clinic have resigned themselves.