Helping people with diabetes in South Africa

It has all ready turned into a successful tradition for the World Diabetes Foundation to present a fundraising project at the International Management meeting (IM) in Novo Nordisk. This year the IM was held in Rome, attended by around 300 leaders from Novo Nordisk offices worldwide. From their private pockets the leaders donated money to the establishment of diabetes clinics in Cape Town, South Africa. An impressive amount of 14.000 USD was collected. The management of Novo Nordisk A/S and NOVO A/S multiplied the donations and together the collected donation amounted to 42,000 USD. The objective of the fundraising is to improve quality care for patients with chronic illness, in this case diabetes complications especially retinopathy and foot care. The project also aims to increase awareness among healthcare workers in the clinics about complications and their risk factors, and aim for possibly better glycaemic control. To date the level of detection of retinopathy in these clinics has been less than 1% which is mainly due to lack of appropriate equipment and trained personnel. “With the initial funds we hope to equip and train staff in clinics located around Cape Town metrople. Our target is fifty clinics but we will start with three. We intend to focus on retinal screening and the training of two technicians and nurses and to produce educational material related to eye care, but also facilitating professional equipment for retinal screening for the total amount of R 167,000 (USD 26,507). The clinics have been chosen based on low socio economic areas with substandard healthcare facilities and presently we have about 4 million patient contacts per year”, explains Dr Timmy Kedijang who is the project responsible and Medical & Corporate Affairs Director in Novo Nordisk South Africa. Better prevention, detection and treatment in South Africa For the amount of R 40,000 (USD 6,350) special staff and ophthalmologists from the university hospital will help train the doctors and the healthcare staff. R10,000 (USD 1590) will be allocated to print educational charts on diabetes retinopathy to be placed on all 50 clinics. Each clinic has formulated key objectives as set out by the Metro District health Services which include improvement of management of diabetes care at all facilities. The specific objectives that will require close attention are to ensure that all facilities have guidelines, implement retinal screening, and routine standardized foot care and measurement (BMI,Cholesterol,HbA1c). The chronic care teams will go through a quarterly training check and the clinical audits will be monitored to ensure the entire objectives are met. The longterm objectives ensuring sustanibility “The pilot is planned to go for 6-9 months and we intend to continue our activities beyond the project funding period" explains Dr Timmy Kedijang. "The intention is to commence training of 200 healthcare workers and we have ensured laser therapy facilities, transport funding by the District services and all the people involved are permanent employees in these clinics. We are just merely providing them with extra resources to help the Metro District Health Services to meet the long term objectives and ensuring sustanibility of the project after the initial funding is completed" Because of the university based training model they have made a direct link to treatment allowing people diagnosed with retinopathy to go to the main university hospital for laser treatment. "The ophthalmologist will train the clinic based doctor and the ophthalmic nurse to administer laser therapy, so in the long term there are enough resources to treat the diagnosed patients", he says. The situation in South Africa and the state of diabetes care About 47 million people live in the Republic of South Africa. Approximately 80% of these receive government-sponsored medical care, and 20% receive medical care in the private sector – paid for either by themselves or by medical insurance schemes. The costs of diabetes management are considerable, both for the person with the condition and the health-care provider. There is an explosion of diabetes worldwide and developing countries like South Africa are the worst hit. According to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) the estimated number of people with diabetes in South Africa is around 840.000. The World Health Organization (WHO) and International Diabetes Federation (IDF) predicts that in South Africa, the numbers will increase to more more than 1.3 million in the next 25 years. Although all groups are affected, those most at risk are the black community who are undergoing rapid lifestyle and cultural changes, and people of Indian descent who have a gene pool that makes them unusually susceptible to diabetes. “Diabetes can be controlled, but uncontrolled diabetes can lead to dreaded health complications such as blindness, amputations, kidney failure, heart attacks and strokes, which are devastating to the individual and very expensive to the health services. Above all, we hope this fundraising event with the help of Novo Nordisk employees, will attract other resources to assist the people who are working hard to improve the lives of people with diabetes in South Africa”, elaborates Dr Anil Kapur, Managing Director WDF.