Call for better access to Home Enteral Nutrition services

The Dietitians Association of Australia (DAA), Australia’s leading nutrition organisation has urged Australia’s Health Ministers to make access to Home Enteral Nutrition (HEN) services fair and equitable across the nation.

DAA said adequate food and nutrition is a basic human right, but access to HEN services currently depends on the State or Territory in which patients live.

DAA wants a national framework to address inequities in accessing HEN services across Australia. DAA is calling on the Ministers to ensure all Australians requiring HEN services to meet their basic nutrition needs have access to skilled clinical care, such as an Accredited Practising Dietitian, and affordable HEN formula and equipment.

HEN patients are nourished through special feeding tubes or nutrition drinks. An estimated 37,000 Australians require HEN services, due to conditions such as stroke, head and neck cancer, and cystic fibrosis.

Accredited Practising Dietitian (APD), Glen Pang, said simple strategies, such as better access to APDs and HEN formula and equipment, could help improve patient health and also save health care dollars.

‘HEN is a cost-effective therapy to treat malnutrition, which affects more than one in three hospital patients, and to maintain or improve nutrition in people unable to meet their nutrition needs through diet alone,’ said Mr Pang.

DAA said malnourished patients have a 40-70 percent longer length of hospital stay and use more health resources as a result.