The West African Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (WASPEN) has called for stronger clinical nutrition services in Nigerian hospitals, making nutrition screening, assessment, and intervention an integral part of patient care.
The President and Founder of WASPEN, Dr Teresa Isichei Pounds, made the call during an online press conference themed “Nutrition is a Team Effort”, ahead of the 2026 Malnutrition Awareness Week, organised in collaboration with the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (ASPEN).
Isichei Pounds said that while nutrition interventions had traditionally focused largely on food insecurity, maternal and child nutrition, breastfeeding and micronutrient deficiencies, they needed to pay greater attention to malnutrition among people receiving hospital care.
She noted that patients could arrive at hospitals already malnourished, while others could become nutritionally depleted during illness or have increased nutritional requirements because of surgery, infection, cancer, trauma or critical illness. “Yet, nutrition can sometimes remain secondary to the condition that brought the patient to the hospital. We believe it should not,” she said.
The WASPEN president stressed that, “Nutrition screening, assessment, intervention and monitoring should be considered alongside the other essential components of clinical management.”
She called for routine identification of patients at nutritional risk and the establishment of stronger multidisciplinary nutrition care structures across health facilities.
Isichei Pounds also advocated improved nutrition competencies among healthcare professionals, adequate systems and resources for patients requiring enteral or parenteral nutrition, as well as the measurement of nutrition care and outcomes as part of the overall quality of healthcare.
She explained that nutrition care should not be regarded as the responsibility of one professional group, but should involve physicians, nurses, dietitians and nutritionists, pharmacists, laboratory professionals, community health workers and other members of the healthcare team.
“Teamwork does not mean that everyone performs the same function. It means that each professional brings their expertise to the same patient, with the same goal: better outcomes and better quality of care,” she said.
The WASPEN founder also called for stronger links between community-based nutrition interventions and clinical care, noting that malnutrition should be addressed across the entire continuum of care.
She recalled that WASPEN, during its 5th Clinical Nutrition Conference in Asaba, Delta State, combined professional activities with community outreach in Ogwa Ukwu and Ahaba, taking nutrition awareness directly to residents.
“That experience reinforced something very important for us. Nutrition belongs in the community, but it also belongs in our hospitals,” Isichei said.
“A person may receive nutrition education in the community, become ill, require hospital care, and later return to that same community. Our nutrition systems must therefore be connected across these different stages of care,” Isichei said.
While commending progress in Nigeria’s national nutrition agenda, she highlighted initiatives including the Nutrition 774 Initiative, the development of the National Policy on Food and Nutrition 2026–2035, increased attention to sustainable nutrition financing, as well as renewed focus on micronutrient deficiencies and the critical first 1,000 days of life.
She said these developments represented important steps toward addressing malnutrition and reflected a growing recognition that nutrition was not only a health issue but also one with implications for human capital, national development and the future of the country.
“As Nigeria strengthens its national nutrition architecture, we respectfully encourage greater attention to clinical nutrition and nutrition care within the acute and hospital setting,” she said.
The society’s activities for the 2026 awareness week would include two webinars designed to bring together professionals and stakeholders across the nutrition and healthcare sectors.
The first webinar, titled “Nutrition Care is a Team Effort: Defining Roles, Building Partnerships, Improving Outcomes,” will examine collaboration, professional responsibilities, partnerships and the policy environment required to strengthen nutrition care.
The second, “From Screening to Recovery: The Multidisciplinary Nutrition Care Pathway in Practice,” will focus on the clinical setting, examining how nutrition care can progress from screening and identification through assessment, intervention, monitoring and recovery.
The activities are designed to ensure that Malnutrition Awareness Week went beyond simply informing Nigerians about the existence of malnutrition.
“This year’s Malnutrition Awareness Week is therefore not simply about telling Nigerians that malnutrition exists. It is about asking what we can do differently,” she said.
She called for continued government leadership in making nutrition a sustained national priority, while urging stakeholders to embrace the full continuum of nutrition care.
“Let us continue to strengthen nutrition in our communities. Let us protect mothers and children during the critical first 1,000 days. Let us address food and micronutrient insecurity. But let us also remember the patient in the hospital.”
“From the community to the hospital, from prevention to treatment, and from screening to recovery, nutrition must remain part of the care we provide,” she added.
