KARACHI, Sept 21: Health experts at a seminar on Tuesday underlined the need for formulating the national health policy in order to check the growing incidence of diabetes.
According to them, diabetes in the country is rising at almost three times more than the pace of population growth. They said that Pakistan was still among the countries where public had little idea about the cause of the disease, aggravating factors and its severe repercussions on different organs of the body.
The seminar on diabetes was organized at the Dow University of Health Sciences as a part of its ongoing medical education programme. Dr Salahuddin Afsar, Dr Niaz Ahmed Sheikh, Dr Iftikhar Ahmed Arain, Dr Waqar H. Kazmi, Dr Shahid Wahab, Dr Naila Shabaz and other health experts spoke on the occasion.
Reminding that Diabetes Mallitus is a progressing disease, they underscored need for proper understanding about the health condition among the medical undergraduates as well as all health care providers not only to ensure proper treatment, but also to provide effective counselling to the patients - ultimately helping control the ailment and prevent its extremely perilous complications.
It was mentioned with extreme concern that unlike the trend in the developed world where population above 65 years was noticed to be inflicted with the condition, 45 years old people could be found reporting with Diabetes Mallitus in the third world countries.
The experts explicitly referred to a wide range of varied studies conducted in the country, region as well as globe showing surge in the incidence of Diabetes Mallitus in India by almost 151 per cent compared to 40 per cent increase in the number of people by the next 25 years.
Pakistan was stated to be steadily following India and China, where according to current estimates more than 12 per cent of the population above 25 years were inflicted with the disease while a much higher number of people were stated to be suffering from impaired glucose tolerance.
Speakers attributed the scenario mainly to sedentary life style and fast decline in physical activity among all age group of people that too without any distinction on basis of gender. Obesity, owing to growing fast food culture and negligence towards healthy eating habits, followed by urbanization and ageing were also cited to be aggravating the situation.
In the given backdrop, Dr Iftikhar Arain presented outcome of his recently conducted cross-sectional study meant to evaluate status effective counselling of the diabetic patients attending OPDs of government hospitals as well as those seeking treatment from consultants.
It was revealed that 70 per cent of the diabetic patients were assessed and attended by their doctors for more than 10 minutes; 84.7 per cent mentioned that their respective doctors do not talk to them for more than five minutes; 94.4 per cent were never given any calorie chart; 55.3 per cent were never advised for eye examination; 61 per cent never informed about special foot care and 76.5 per cent patients had never checked their sole.
Although 76.5 per cent complained of visual impairment, around 94 per cent patients said that no ophthalmological assessment was ever undertaken while 83.5 per cent said that they were never referred by their doctors to any eye specialist.
Giving further statistics, he said that 84.7 per cent patients maintained to had no knowledge about the benefit of high fibre diet; 68 per cent had no idea about the normal fasting blood sugar levels and 69.4 per cent had no idea about complications of the disease.
It was deduced that more than 50 per cent of the interviewees comprising illiterates, well reflective of the general scenario there appeared to be a general inability on part of doctors to communicate with them - environment of OPDs and clinics were also registered not to be congenial enough where patients may develop a rapport with their healthcare providers.
While seeking urgent measures to improve the scenario, the health experts also referred to varied interventions to counter the effect of Diabetes Mallitus.
It was stressed that change in life style with emphasis on physical activity and healthy eating habits coupled with a certain degree of supervised drug therapy could protect diabetics from a wide range of complications ranging from blindness to amputation to end stage renal diseases, besides cardiovascular complications. -APP
