The objective of the project is to promote quality diabetes education.
Expected impact
200 health workers trained as diabetes educators
24,000 people with diabetes will benefit
10,000 people screened for diabetes
200 awareness programmes conducted
Results to date
105 diabetes clinics have been established / strengthened.
521 patients have been treated at these clinics.
77 diabetes educators and 28 nurses have been trained.
202 awareness / screening camps have been conducted reaching 10,516 people. 447 people were identified with diabetes and 1,583 with prediabetes.
Diabetes educational material has been produced.
Massive awareness campaigns were conducted on World Diabetes Day 2010 and 2011.
Project details
With 200 inhabited islands, delivering proper health care to all can be a challenge - particularly for a chronic disease like diabetes. This is the challenge which the small resource poor Republic of Maldives faces.
The larger regional hospitals and atoll hospitals located in the main islands mainly provide curative services with little focus on prevention. At the island level health services are provided by community health workers or family health workers with insufficient knowledge about non-communicable diseases like diabetes. This is a major constraint for diabetes prevention and care, especially as there are no trained diabetes educators outside the capital.
In order to address prevention and care and avert the prevalence rates reaching 11.2% in 2025 as projected in the World Diabetes Atlas (3rd edition), diabetes education in the Maldives must be strengthened.
Approach
Promoting quality diabetes education is very much in line with the Maldives' Health Master Plan 2006-2015, which stresses the need to support evidence based health promotion including training of primary health care providers and screening programmes.
The Diabetes Society of Maldives will implement the project, which essentially aims at training health care providers from the 200 inhabited islands in diabetes education.
One health care provider from each island will be trained in diabetes education by participating in a workshop that includes two weeks of theory classes and one week with practical hands-on training at a clinic at the capital island Malé. A total of six workshops will be carried out during the three year project period training at least 200 health care providers.
The trained health care providers who pass the exam will be given a five year contract to work in their home island and will be obliged to train at least two other health care providers to become diabetes educators.
Moreover, their role will be to provide overall care to people with diabetes and thereby improve the health and quality of life for these people. They will also identify high risk populations and provide counselling in order to prevent the onset of the disease. Furthermore, they will play a key role in overcoming obstacles in providing care to disadvantaged and vulnerable groups as well as the rural population which is difficult to reach due to the country's geography. It is expected that around 24,000 people with diabetes will benefit.
Trained health care providers will conduct screening for diabetes and organise awareness programmes to inform the population of the importance of prevention and early detection. Approximately 10,000 people will be screened for diabetes and 200 awareness programmes will be carried out.
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