Lack of nutritional monitoring in hospitals: Interview with Yasmine Zerbo, Nutritionist Dietician

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Extract from the article: Undernutrition is very common among hospital patients. Its prevalence and consequences are underestimated. Undernutrition is in fact an independent factor in morbidity and mortality, and is responsible for significant additional hospital costs. Yasm

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« In many African countries, there is a serious problem with dietetics. Two out of every four patients admitted to hospital suffer from malnutrition. Most of them die for lack of nutritional follow-up »

Undernutrition is very common among hospital patients. Its prevalence and consequences are underestimated. Undernutrition is in fact an independent factor in morbidity and mortality, and is responsible for significant additional hospital costs.  Yasmine Zerbo, a nutritionist and dietician specialising in the nutritional management of chronic diseases such as hypertension, obesity, diabetes and cancer, stresses that nutritional status is an essential component of the health and well-being of hospitalised patients. In this interview, the specialist appeals to the African authorities to save hospitalised patients from the lack of nutritional monitoring due to the lack of dieticians.

Santé-Education: What's the difference between dietetics and nutrition?

Yasmine Zerbo: Nutrition is a vast field.There is human, community and clinical nutrition.Dietetics is clinical nutrition. Nutritionists carry out in-depth studies of foods.Dieticians are the only health professionals capable of working in hospitals, because their training is purely clinical.It is the dietician who uses the food composition table to calculate the nutritional value of foods and menus. It is the dietician who uses food to compose a menu for all people, healthy or ill.It is the dietician who monitors people who are ill, diabetics, hypertensives, haemodialysis patients and cancer patients. They also provide nutritional education for healthy people such as children, adolescents, adults, the elderly, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers.

Is the dietician an indispensable professional in the hospital environment?

Absolutely. But unfortunately dietetics is not well known in many African countries because dieticians are not to be found in hospitals.Yet dieticians are essential in hospitals to combat malnutrition.The ministries responsible for health need to become aware of the problem of malnutrition in hospitals.Many patients die for lack of nutritional support.It's true that drug treatment plays a major role, but diet also plays an important role.

What is hospital undernutrition?

Hospital nutrition involves assessing the nutritional status of each patient, devising diets, helping the kitchen to devise menus to suit the patient's pathology, and ensuring that the kitchen follows the correct dosage.It is the dietician who then administers the food to the patients.

But in some hospitals, such as intensive care units, there is a serious dietary problem, with patients suffering from malnutrition.In Burkina Faso, for example, at the Yalgado University Hospital, as a specialist in enteral and parenteral nutrition, I proposed a local product for which I highlighted the microbiological value, the physicochemical value and the nutritional value.I'm in the process of obtaining my diploma so that I can help patients.The dietician is essential in a hospital setting, especially in intensive care, to help with the renutrition of patients in bed.

As an experienced dietician, why don't you draw the authorities' attention to the shortage of dieticians in our hospitals?

So far, some states are not thinking of recruiting dieticians.I don't know whether this is due to negligence, but I'm hopeful that it will happen. Unfortunately, we focus on the community and forget about the hospital or clinic.It's true, it's good to help with community problems.But let's not forget that hospital patients also need nutritional follow-up.

Frankly, it's a cry from the heart that I'm launching to governments, to the ministries in charge of health, to think about it, to save the hospital structures in Africa. Two out of every four patients admitted to hospital suffer from malnutrition. Most of them die for lack of nutritional follow-up.Drug treatment isn't enough, you still need nutritional monitoring.

When we say diet, people think of diets to lose weight. What do you think about that?

Everyone needs a specific diet adapted to their pathology, adapted to their choices, adapted to their preferences based on local produce, whether they are healthy (children, adults, teenagers, the elderly, pregnant women, breast-feeding mothers) or ill.The most important thing to remember is to eat locally.Let's consume what we have, let's consume organically to avoid chronic diseases and live a long life.

Interview by Abel OZIH