MOH launches sponsor-a-child drive - for children living with diabetes

Source: Guyana Chronicle, 2nd March 2008

WITH diabetes having a unique impact on families the world over, the Ministry of Health on Friday launched a programme here to encourage corporate sponsorship of children living with diabetes.

The programme is seeking to assist children and adolescents to respond to the dire circumstances of living with diabetes if proper care and management is not instituted.

Each child was provided with one glucometer or sugar testing machine and a year’s supply of strips for the instrument.

The sponsors included New GPC Inc., Cara Hotels, Roraima Group of Companies, Le Meridien Pegasus, Multi Tech Reference Laboratory, Demerara Bank, Best Buy, New York Styles, the Ministry of Health and individuals from the Ministry of Health. Bounty Supermarket sponsored seven-year-old Savita Kamalcharran of Reliance, Canje.

In brief remarks, Mr. Patrick DeGroot of Bounty Supermarket explained that he was diagnosed with diabetes since 1994 and has been taking insulin three times a day. This, he said, can be quite a task for adults, much less children, and that it was for this very reason that Bounty has no reservations in partnering with the Ministry on this initiative.

Minister of Health, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, commended the private sector for answering the Ministry’s call to support this venture.

At present the Ministry of Health has approximately 34 children and adolescents enlisted, but the initial programme kicked off with 11 children, seven of whom were present to receive their gifts from sponsors, and food hampers, compliments of Geddes Grant.

This initiative began as part of the Ministry’s activities for World Diabetes Day 2007, and while the sponsorship will run for one year for each child, the Ministry is hoping to attract corporate interest to ensure that each child is sponsored until age 19.

Diabetes interrupts children’s lives since they need to monitor on a regular basis their blood glucose levels, take medications and balance the effect of food and activity. It can also interfere with the normal developmental tasks of childhood and adolescence, which include succeeding in school and transition to adulthood. In young children, frequent episodes of very low blood sugar may result in brain abnormalities and impaired cognitive functions.

The theme of this year's World Diabetes Day campaign is ‘Diabetes in Children and Adolescents’. Diabetes is one of the most common chronic diseases of childhood. It can strike children at any age, including pre-school children and even toddlers. Yet, diabetes in children is often diagnosed late or completely misdiagnosed, and as a consequence, many children die of diabetes. Type 2 diabetes was once seen as a disease of adults. This type of diabetes is growing at alarming rates in children and adolescents.

Those persons who are closest to the children do not know the warning signs of diabetes, hence, Diabetes Day 2007 and 2008 campaigns set out to challenge this and firmly establish the message that ‘no child should die of diabetes’.

Country Representative for PAHO/WHO Dr. Kathleen Israel urged the children to be educated about diabetes as education will empower them to better manage and control the effects of diabetes, since there is no cure.

“You have to know how to take care of your body so that your education and your activities are not affected,” she told the children. It is critical, Dr. Israel noted, that parents, relatives, guardians and health workers teach children to become sensitive to their bodies reaction to low and high sugar levels and what should be done in those times.

“So you have a big responsibility for so little people,” she added.

Minister Ramsammy noted that diabetes is a pandemic that continues to grow globally and even in Guyana. At present, there are about 50,000 Guyanese living with diabetes and it is important that those persons live normal lives as others. The Minister acknowledged that much of managing and even preventing diabetes depends on choosing healthy lifestyle choices.

Addressing the topic of children living with diabetes, Minister Ramsammy noted that diabetes is not a condition that one can live with in an affordable way, and that this can pose a constraint for many families to provide adequate care.

“For the moment,” he said, “every child that lives with diabetes, we want to provide assistance to their families. We want to ensure that when it comes to the needs of these children in terms of medication, in terms of seeing doctors, their nutrition and monitoring their condition, they have the tools to do so.”

He however hastened to assure that the Government will continue to invest as much as possible in preventing and treating diabetes so as to ensure that no diabetic is denied access to critical information for their health.

He noted also that the Ministry is expanding its foot care programme for diabetics, but in the meantime, persons could begin to care for their feet at home, stressing that it is important that families assist in teaching their children to care for their feet on a daily basis.

Doing so, he said, would avoid one of the major complications of diabetes – amputation. He also urged parents to set examples with their lifestyle choices so that if their children are diabetic, they would practice healthy habits as well.

Many of the children and adolescents living with this chronic disease are not included in this record. On this note, the Ministry is appealing to parents, relatives, concerned citizens, community members, NGOs, religious bodies and organisations to contact them if they have information about children or adolescent (from childhood to 19 years) so that these children could be assisted in managing this disease.

The Ministry could be reached through the Chronic Diseases Coordinator, Dr Gumti Krishendat on telephone # 223-5310 or via the Ministry’s Switchboard on 226-5861.

In the interim, the Ministry is seeking sponsors for the remaining children on its list and Mr. DeGroot has undertaken to further render whatever assistance he could.