Rodríguez D, et al. Rev. Nutr. Clin. Metab. 2019;2(Supl.1):10-11.





The Cartagena Declaration from the optics of the presidency of FELANPE

Declaración de Cartagena desde la óptica de la presidencia de la FELANPE

Declaração de Cartagena da óptica da presidência de FELANPE


Dolores Rodríguez Veintimilla.1


https://doi.org/10.35454/rncm.v2supl1.027



1 President of FELANPE 2019 - 2020

*Corresponding author: Dolores Rodríguez Veintimilla

dra.rodriguezv@yahoo.com


According to the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language (RAE), Declaration is the action and effect of declaring, manifesting or explaining what others doubt or ignore, manifestation of intent or intention. On May 3, 2019, the 16 countries that make up the Latin American Federation of Nutritional Therapy, Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (FELANPE) in the city of Cartagena, Colombia, raised their voices, proclaimed to the world and registered their real commitment to recognize nutritional care as a Human Right independent of the level of health care, in action against the various kinds of malnutrition and in particular that which is disease related, convinced that adequate Nutritional Therapy can correct malnutrition, improve disease prognosis, quality of life, decrease comorbidities, mortality and health costs.

The great initiative to recognize the right of patients to receive nutritional therapy as a human right, registered as the Cartagena Declaration: International Declaration on the Right to Nutritional Care and the Fight against Malnutrition, saw the light from the hand of a great professional, Dr. Diana Cardenas who with Dr. Charles Bermudez, president, and other distinguished members of the Colombian Association of Clinical Nutrition (ACNC) designed this great project and promoted this activity with the main objective of reducing the prevalence of disease-related malnutrition and promote the development of clinical nutrition. Malnutrition figures in Latin America range between 40 % and 60 %, and there are even studies that report an increase in its prevalence with a notable increase in the number of days of hospital stay and a greater frequency of comorbidities.

The question comes to mind: How to promote compliance with the Cartagena Declaration? This leads us to the last point of the Declaration in which FELANPE shares with its co-responsible organizations the concern and responsibility regarding the process of intervening in the different forms of malnutrition, due to the negative impact it has on the health of individuals, communities and societies.

It is gratifying to see the way in which the different countries of FELANPE are working together to fight hospital malnutrition, and this example of perseverance and effort has spread to other societies such as the European Society of Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (ESPEN), the American Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (ASPEN), and the Pan American and Iberian Federation of Critical Medicine and Intensive Care (FEPIMCTI), among others.

As has been expressed on multiple occasions “no person is an island”, and the desired objectives will not be achieved if each one works alone, on his or her own. In this sense, with the signing and proclamation of the Cartagena Declaration, FELANPE leads a global effort so that finally food and nutritional security in hospitals and health systems is recognized as an indissoluble part of therapeutic success and comprehensive health management.


References

  1. Cardenas D, Bermúdez CH, Echeverri S, Perez A, Puentes M, Lopez M, et al. Declaración de Cartagena. Declaración Internacional sobre el Derecho al Cuidado Nutricional y la Lucha contra la Malnutrición. Nutr Hosp. 2019;36(4):974-98. http://dx.doi.org/10.20960/nh.02701.
  2. Correia MITD, Perman MI, Waitzberg DL. Hospital malnutrition in Latin America: a systematic review. Clin Nutr. 2017;36:958-67.
  3. Ruiz AJ, Buitrago G, Rodríguez N, Gómez G, Sulo S, Gómez C, et al.  Clinical and economic outcomes associated with malnutrition in hospitalized patients. Clin Nutr. 2018; S0261-5614(18)30201-2. doi: 10.1016/j.clnu.2018.05.016.