Berbice focuses on diabetes

Oct 21, 2016 News

A one-day session on diabetes at the New Amsterdam Town Hall was a collaborative effort between the Regional Health Services of Berbice, the New Amsterdam Hospital and the Guyana Diabetic Association.

The medical team that hosted the diabetic session.

This recent event attracted a large cross section of people, a number of whom are diabetic. They were exposed to an interactive session on healthy living. They were given exercise tips and samples of food that should be consumed for a long healthy life.
Diabetes is a chronic condition associated with abnormally high levels of sugar (glucose) in the blood. Some of the symptoms associated with this chronic non-communicable disease include increased urine output, thirst, and hunger as well as fatigue. Persons also suffer from the numbness of feet or loss of protective sensation, in which people with diabetes are more likely to get foot ulcers.
President of The Guyana Diabetic Association, Ms Glenis Alonzo-Beaton, said that the association will be moving aggressively to help people deal with the disease. According to Ms Alonzo-Beaton, many persons don’t know that they are diabetic. There needs to be more education and more testing.
Sessions were led by Chief Medical Officer of the New Amsterdam Hospital Dr. Vishalya Sharma and include Dr. Carr, Dr. Nelson, Dr. Dos Ramos, CEO Colin Bynoe and Nurse Michelle Mars among others.
At the end of the sessions a Berbice Diabetic Association was formed headed by Matron of the New Amsterdam hospital, Annette Paul Lyken. The association plans to be aggressive in its approach by going out into the communities, use the media and also organise mass activities to help tackle this scourge.
According to Ms. Alonzo-Beaton who will be taking up the chairmanship of the North American and Caribbean Region of the International Diabetic Federation, an estimated 12 percent of the population are diabetics, one of the highest in the Caribbean.
There are about 70,000 persons suffering from diabetes in Guyana with about 8000 new persons being tested every year.

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