Medical aids and hospital administrators need to urgently adjust their approach to identifying and treating malnutrition in their hospitalised patients in order to reduce the overall cost of care and improve patient outcomes. This is the view of Naazneen Khan, Chairperson of the Enteral Nutrition Association (ENASA) of South Africa.
“Dietitians and other healthcare workers in public and private sector hospitals in South Africa have found that a significant number of in-patients suffer from malnutrition. This often has significant implications in terms of increased mortality, morbidity, length of stay and hospital readmission rates,” she adds.
