Nutrition
From Hospital to Home: The RUTF revolution in child malnutrition treatment
FOR decades, treating severely malnourished children meant weeks or months of hospitalization. Families were forced to choose between staying with and caring for a sick child in a distant facility and keeping their farms, businesses, and households running.
Hospital wards are filled with vulnerable children who often face higher risks of hospital-acquired infections. The financial burden is overwhelming for poor households while health systems struggle with overcrowded wards and limited bed capacity. The introduction of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) fundamentally changed this reality.
RUTF is a nutrient-dense, peanut-based food that requires no water, cooking, or refrigeration. Developed in the 1990s, it made it possible for most clinically stable children with uncomplicated severe acute malnutrition to be treated at home through community-based programs after initial stabilization.
Instead of weeks or months in hospital, children could recover in their own homes with regular follow-up at nearby health facilities. This shift from inpatient to outpatient care represents one of the most important advances in child nutrition treatment.
Evidence from community-based management programs consistently shows high recovery rates, typically between 75 and 90 percent, with mortality kept below internationally accepted thresholds.
Children gain weight steadily, treatment usually lasts six to ten weeks, and outcomes meet or exceed global standards, often at far lower cost than prolonged hospitalization.
For families, the benefits are immediate and practical. Mothers no longer need to abandon other children or sources of income to remain in hospital for long periods. Weekly clinic visits replace extended admissions. Children stay in familiar environments with family care, and households avoid the costs of transport, hospital fees, and lost earnings. For many families living in poverty, this difference determines whether treatment is feasible at all.
Health systems also gain. Hospital beds are freed for children with medical complications who genuinely require inpatient care. Health workers can focus limited resources where they are most needed.
Community-based management allows significantly more children to be treated with the same resources compared to hospital admissions. As a result, this approach has been adopted across many countries facing high malnutrition burdens.
Ghana has embraced this evidence-based approach. RUTF is included in the Essential Medicines List and approved in Standard Treatment Guidelines. Healthcare workers across 20 districts have been trained in community-based management protocols. National guidelines are finalized and disseminated. The technical foundation and implementation capacity exists.
Yet access remains limited. An estimated 68,517 children in Ghana suffer from severe acute malnutrition each year, but only a small proportion receive treatment. The main barrier is not knowledge or infrastructure, it is financing.
Current reliance on donor funding creates predictable problems. Supply disruptions occur when funding cycles end. Geographic coverage depends on where donors choose to work rather than where malnutrition rates are highest. Health facilities are unable to develop effective plans without assurance of the availability of RUTF in the coming months or years.
Families in some districts access treatment while others with identical needs face empty shelves. This fragmented approach prevents Ghana from achieving the 80 to 90 percent coverage possible with adequate, sustainable financing.
Including RUTF in the National Health Insurance Scheme would address this gap. Ghana already has an established delivery platform through NHIS, with a large proportion of mothers and young children enrolled. Integrating RUTF into the benefits package would ensure that every child with severe acute malnutrition can access lifesaving treatment at home, regardless of location or household income. The move from hospital-based to community-based care proved that better approaches are possible. Sustainable, domestic financing would ensure that these better approaches reach every child who needs them.
Feature article by Women, Media and Change under its Nourish Ghana: Advocating for Increased Leadership to Combat Malnutrition project
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In March 2025, world leaders gathered in Paris for the Nutrition for Growth (N4G) Summit, the most important global gathering on malnutrition of the decade. Over $30 billion in new financial commitments were pledged globally by more than 170 actors from 82 countries. Ghana was there. Ghana made commitments. The question now is: are those commitments enough, and will they be delivered?
Ghana made 10 commitments at the 2025 N4G Summit. One of the most significant is a pledge to spend at least $6 million annually from 2026 for the procurement of essential nutrition commodities including ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF), multiple micronutrient supplements (MMS), iron-folic acid tablets, vitamin A supplements, and anthropometric equipment for measuring child growth.
This financial commitment is meaningful. For years, Ghana’s nutrition programmes have depended heavily on donor funding, leaving services vulnerable to aid cuts and supply disruptions. A domestic budget line for nutrition commodities signals a shift toward ownership and sustainability. It also directly supports Ghana’s Nutrition for Growth commitments from the 2021 Tokyo Summit, several of which remain off track.
The Bigger Picture
The 2025 N4G Summit was about more than funding. It called for systemic change: embedding nutrition in food systems, health coverage, climate resilience, and gender equality. Every dollar invested in nutrition is estimated to return $16 to the local economy. Yet malnutrition still costs Ghana an estimated 6.4 per cent of its GDP annually. That is not a public health statistic. It is an economic emergency.
The National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) has acknowledged that converting summit outcomes into actionable change requires transparent policy dialogue and locally driven solutions.
Commitments made in Paris must be tracked, funded, and implemented in Ghana’s communities. Programmes must move from pilot scale to national coverage. That will not happen without sustained political will, dedicated domestic financing, and public accountability.
Commitments made on global stages matter. But they only become meaningful when they translate into services in communities. The question is not what Ghana promised in Paris. It is what Ghana delivers at home.
Feature article by Women, Media and Change under its Nourish Ghana: Advocating for Increased Leadership to Combat Malnutrition project
Cabbage is very rich in fibre, the main supplier of roughage. This helps the body retain water and it maintains the bulkiness of the food as it moves through the bowels.
Thus, it is a good remedy for constipation and other digestion-related problems.
Ingredients
-1 large cabbage
– 4 large fresh tomatoes
– 1 large onion
– Pepper
-Garlic
-2 large salmon
-1 tin of mackerel
-2 large green pepper
-Salt to taste
Preparation
-Chop cabbage roughly and wash in a large pot of water
-Pour vinegar on it and wait until you make other preparations. Then drain.
-Heat coconut oil in a saucepan over medium heat
-Cook and stir onion in hot oil until onion turns dark brown.
-Blend tomatoes, green pepper, garlic and onion and add to the oil
-Add tomato paste, mackerel and salmon to stew
-Add cabbage, stir and cover to cook for 7 – 10 minutes
-Allow to simmer when it is soft and serve with rice, yam etc.
