KOCHI: The Kumbalam Grama Panchayat, with the help of a private agency, has chalked out an ambitious programme that could result in the local body being declared a ‘diabetes free zone’ in the future.
The programme, jointly initiated by the panchayat and Wellness Solutions, a private healthcare agency, with the support of National Human Rights Commission, focuses on diabetes prevention rather than treatment.
The project would utilise simple screening tools to detect diabetes and then utilise the data from the survey to create awareness regarding lifestyle changes through a series of training programmes.
“The Common man is not aware about the complications diabetes can cause, therefore we have to go to the field and educate people about it and make them follow the guidelines and solutions given,” said Dr A Sreekumar, founder and director of Wellness Solutions.
A comprehensive survey under the guidance of Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) is currently underway in the panchayat to map the incidence of diabetes among residents above the age of 18. The survey would categorize the citizens under four segments - low-risk, high-risk, diabetes with low risk and diabetes with high risk.
“Once the survey and classification is done, camps would be organised every Saturday from July. These camps would create awareness among the various diabetes risk groups,” said Dr Sushama, Coordinator, Wellness Solutions. Entry to the camp is absolutely free.
“The project was earlier allotted to Maradu Panchayat by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), but was routed to us as Maradu was elevated to Municipality,” said P S Haridas, Panchayat Health Standing Committee Chairman.
“This is a test case for us and if the project is successful we would take it to other panchayats,” said Dr.Sujith, Coordinator, Wellness Solutions.
According to research reports, India is facing an epidemic of diabetes with about 7 crore patients on record and another three cores in pre-diabetes group. It is estimated that India will have the largest number of patients in the world by 2030