Baguio City – The Regional Nutrition Committee-Cordillera Administrative Region (RNC-CAR) approved the first resolution for 2021 titled “Reiterating RNC resolution no. 7, s. of 2017: Enjoining all local government units and regional line agencies to ensure verification and calibration of weighing scales for health and nutrition services with specific recommendations”. This reiteration of the policy is a result of the policy review conducted by NNC-CAR on the 2017 resolution on calibration from October to December 2020.
The review showed that DOST-CAR conducted trainings on calibration and for Local Government Units (LGUs) on 2017 and 2018 and conducted with DOH actual calibration of 336 weighing scales for health services of LGUs and hospitals in 2019 and some LGUs undertaking verification/calibration activities including some few LGUs having procured test weights for verification/calibration.
The review also showed that as of August 2020, 25 percent of beam balance weighing scales and 27 percent of hanging type weighing scales, the scale commonly used for operation timbang were calibrated with three provinces having less than 20% of their hanging type scales calibrated.
Committee members recognize the importance of quality nutritional status data for policy formulation, planning and implementation of nutrition programs at various levels and calibration of weighing scales is a basic requirement for accurate weight data collection.
The resolution recommends procurement of test weights for verification and calibration by the LGUs, designation of dedicated staff to conduct verification/calibration at a specified period, inclusion of verification of weighing scales as part of the School's Annual Implementation Plan (AIP) and School Improvement Plan (SIP) and ensure that weighing scales procured by the LGUs and regional line agencies be calibrated prior to distribution or use.
The resolution was approved during the joint RNC and Regional Technical Assistants on Nutrition virtual meeting held on March 23, 2021.
/BMB/RDP
