Public health workers get training to deal with diabetic complication

Jun 27, 2017 News

Diabetes is a disease that can cause a great deal of complications if not properly treated.

Health workers engaged in an Ophthalmoscopy training session.

Among the complications that health workers have had to battle with are those that affect the eyes. This is termed Diabetic Retinopathy.
As an eye disease, diabetic retinopathy is regarded as the most common cause of vision loss among people with diabetes and the leading cause of vision impairment and blindness among working adults. It essentially affects blood vessels in the light-sensitive tissue called the retina that lines the back of the eye.
Moreover, as part of its efforts to advance its delivery of eye care, the public health sector has been offering training to health workers to be well equipped to combat this challenge.
Moreover, on Sunday, a training programme in this regard was conducted. The training, which took the form of a one-day workshop on Diabetic Retinopathy, targeted health care professionals within Region Four, specifically those who operate at health facilities on the East Coast of Demerara. The training workshop was held at Project Dawn, Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown.
According to Head of Ophthalmology at the GPHC, Dr. Shailendra Sugrim, the workshop was geared towards enhancing the skills of general practitioners and nurses with the objective of increasing awareness of diabetic complications.
The programme was an initiative of the Guyana Diabetic Retinopathy Programme [GDRP].
In fact, the Department of Ophthalmology of the GPHC is the coordinating stakeholder of the

A Nutrition Educator lecturing to the workshop participants.

Guyana Diabetic Retinopathy Programme, which falls under the purview of the Ministry of Public Health’s Guyana Diabetes Care Project.
The Guyana Diabetic Retinopathy Programme, according to Dr. Sugrim, aims to introduce Screening and Treatment of Diabetic Eye Disease in the public system. This programme, he explained, is funded by the World Diabetes Federation and has multiple stakeholders assisting in the execution of the project such as the University of Toronto and Orbis International.
As part of this project, the Head of Ophthalmology asserted, human resource development is important. Moreover, the programme entails efforts to raise awareness about Diabetic Retinopathy among health care professionals such as general practitioners and nurses.
At Sunday’s workshop, a total of 27 health care professionals were trained in sessions about diabetes, nutritional aspects of diabetes care, counselling of persons with diabetes, diabetes and how it affects the eye, and screening for diabetic retinopathy. The participants were also exposed to useful information on how to examine the eye during practical sessions.
At the end of the workshop, they were all in a position to give positive reviews about the

Nurses during practical sessions on testing visual acuity.

workshop and indicated that they now have a better understanding of how diabetes affects the eye.
The curriculum/agenda of the workshop was developed by the Department of Ophthalmology and, according to Dr. Sugrim, the training team of seven comprised personnel from various levels at GPHC, including two ophthalmologists, a government medical officer, an optometrist, a Diabetes Educator and Nutrition Counsellor, a clerk and a Nursing Assistant.
In March of this year, a similar workshop was held at the Suddie Regional Hospital, Essequibo, Region Two. A total of 27 participants, including 15 nurses and 12 General Medical Practitioners, were also trained on that occasion.
According to Dr. Sugrim, of the 18,630 persons diagnosed with diabetic retinopathy, a total of 4,658 of them can become blind.
The number of persons already diagnosed with diabetic retinopathy represents 6.25 per cent of the Guyana population.
But there is a chance to reverse the blindness trend that has become synonymous with the disease. This was the disclosure of Coordinator of the Guyana Diabetes Care Project (GDCP), Dr. Brian Ostrow, when he addressed a one-day seminar that was held at Project Dawn last month. It has been revealed that laser treatment, which is offered at the GPHC, can be used as the method to combat blindness associated with Diabetic Retinopathy.

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