Health minister: Will launch total diabetic care programme on Sept 20

Panaji: The state government is starting a diabetic care programme on September 20, aimed at providing free insulin to the people. The programme will also map the diabetic population by way of a registry that will maintain patient details. Though it is understood that the number of diabetes cases in the state have soared, the exact number is not available.

Health minister Vishwajit Rane, in a Facebook post on Tuesday, said the total diabetic care programme will be inaugurated at the hands of chief minister Manohar Parrikar.

Rane said that the government will come out with preventive programmes to detect borderline cases, too. “Working on ensuring that this program will be a great success,” his post read.

Training will be provided to staff to enable them to run foot clinics at sub-health centres, community health centres, primary health centres, sub-district hospitals and the Goa Medical College (GMC), the health minister said.

Goa has a high prevalence of diabetes, and though doctors vouch that they see new cases every day, Goa government is yet to tabulate the state’s diabetic population. A study conducted by GMC two to three years ago showed that, in rural Goa, 10.3% of the population aged 20 and above was diabetic.

The worrying factor is that many young people are being detected with diabetes, which can be mostly attributed their lifestyle, a government doctor said.

The state government provides free medicine, insulin and dialysis facility for diabetes patients.