Lt. Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan on Wednesday called for setting up a mobile breast milk bank to cater to the needs of newborns of mothers who are unable to breastfeed due to various causes.
Inaugurating the World Breastfeeding Week celebrations at the Rajiv Gandhi Women and Children’s hospital, Ms. Soundararajan stressed the need for a rural breast milk bank facility on the lines of the one in Puducherry.
The Lt. Governor urged women to feed their children with breast milk which held unique health promoting and disease prevention properties for both child and mother. Breast milk is vital, especially for infants with low birth weight, she said.
The Lt. Governor also appealed to the mothers to take their COVID vaccine at the earliest and added that proper awareness needed to be created as misconceptions and misplaced fears still persisted about the safety of taking the jab.
Noting that COVID-19 cases registered a slight increase on Tuesday, she said that the government was equipped to face the next wave of the pandemic. So far, 58% of the population have got themselves vaccinated and the administration is now focussing on covering 100% of the population, Ms. Soundararajan said.
Later, the Lt. Governor interacted with the doctors and participated in an oath-taking ceremony to promote awareness of breastfeeding.
As Ms. Soundararajan was leaving, a small group of transgenders approached her to complain that they were being denied access to benefits of government schemes, including ration cards, as the hospital was not providing transgender certificates. The Lt. Governor assured them that she will look into the issue.
