In an effort to address the growing public health crisis posed by the diabetes in the Dominican Republicdoctors belonging to 14 specialized societies, civil and non-profit organizations launched the Campaign “Blue code Diabetes RD”.
This initiative seeks to promote the creation and approval of a law comprehensive for the benefit of those living with diabetesa non-communicable disease that affects 13% of the Dominican population.
“We are looking for the education and the prevention for families and patients who live with a condition of diabetes to be able to handle those challenges and the challenges that students face patients diabetics, psychological support, but also access to health, medical care, attention to medicines and coverage,” he explained. Sherezade Hasbunpresident of the Dominican Society of Endocrinology and Nutrition (Sodenn).
The endocrinologist highlighted that the most serious aspect of the situation is the fact that 50% of those who suffer from this chronic disease probably do not know it.
Affects children and teenagers
Hasbún said that about two thousand children and teenagers in the country have already been diagnosed with diabetes.
“Many of them arrive diagnosed as an emergency, with an acute hyperglycemic crisis, directly to an intensive care unit, on the verge of death,” he commented.
In the case of the patients with diabetes type 1, the doctor stressed the importance of receiving the injections of insulin in time, since the body is not able to produce this hormone.
“These are conditions that put in place risk the life of patient“, he declared.
Number is increasing
The endocrinologist stated that “it is estimated that by 2045 we will have 625 million patients diabetics”.
According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), every six seconds a person dies from complications of the diabetes. 50% of people with diabetes what do you need insulin do not have regular access to it.
“60% of the health budget is spent on complications in hospitals: a prolonged stay in patients complicated, medicineseconomic expenditure, a patient which probably stops serving the productive and social part, ocular blindness, nephropathy and dialysis, which are expensive,” he added.
Hasbún proposed that in the schools educational talks are held and evidence of glycemia as a preventive way to detect the disease in children and teenagers.
“Is a law comprehensive and we focus a lot on the preventive and education“, he stressed, while also advocating for the rights of diagnosed workers to be protected.
Work of the legislators
Meanwhile, Elbi Morla, representing the Dominican Society of Pediatric Endocrinology (Sodep), said she was optimistic that, “as soon as the next one opens, legislaturewe are going to work on that.”
Morla thanked the president of the Senate Health Committee, LÃa DÃaz, for supporting the initiative and participating in the transformation of the proposal.
Testimony
At the activity, Rubileisy Aquino, 30 years old, told her story testimony as patient with diabetes type 1, diagnosed since she was seven years old.
The resident of San Cristóbal explained that the disease has triggered diabetic retinopathy that has affected her vision, hypertension and complications at the kidney level, a situation that has kept her away from working life.
Aquino invests about 20 thousand pesos a month in medicines. “Only the tablets “To take care of the kidney, it costs six thousand pesos,” he said.
Between the institutions united In this initiative, there are the Dominican Society of Endocrinology and Nutrition (Sodenn); the Dominican Society of Pediatric Endocrinology (Sodep); the Dominican Observatory of Diabetes (Ododi); the Dominican Society of Diabetology (Sododian); the Dominican Society of Clinical Nutrition (Sodonuclin); the Society of Internal Medicine of the Dominican Republic (SMIRD); the Dominican Society of Family and Community Medicine (Sodomefyc) and the Foundation for the Study of Diabetes.
