NURSE KEVAME BELGRAVE is anti-diabetes.
The direct and indirect ways the disease affects people’s lives, especially if they are not under the appropriate health care, are shocking to her.
It is a shock which has had the positive effect of making her vow to spend her time and energy fighting the disease.
The nurse, who offers care in the diabetes clinic of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, gives it her all when administering professional care to patients who were referred to the clinic to be treated.
“Diabetes is a serious problem and we have to deal with it.
We have to pay special attention to those living with the disease . . .,” she said.
When opening a health expo in November, 2009, Minister of Health Donville Inniss said that Barbados had the leading morbidity and mortality rates in the region for diabetes, with the prevalence rate standing at 16. 4 per cent.
He also gave some startling figures on the disease as it relates to this island, pointing out that it was the third leading cause of blindness here, that major and minor lower limb amputations averaged almost 200 per year, and that Barbados was regarded over the years as the amputation capital of the world.
There was also the revelation that 40 per cent of people on dialysis had some kind of diabetes-related kidney disease and the average length of stay for a diabetic patient at the QEH was 17 days. The medicines dispensed by the Barbados Drugs Service for diabetes represented the third major group of drugs, he said.
Such statistics contribute to Belgrave’s passion about a disease which is affecting children and adults.
A patient, who has gone to the clinic for the first time, ends up spending quite some time with the nurse and her team. The usual checkup is carried out.
But education about the disease and how to control it is mandatory for all who come through the clinic’s doors, says the WEDNESDAY WOMAN.
“We normally do the basics, which are monitoring the blood pressure, the blood sugar. We check the cholesterol levels, the feet, the back of the eyes, and also do the weight,” she explained.
“Persons who come to us are generally on insulin or have to change over to insulin. They must walk with their blood sugar machine or the book with their recordings.
“We would go through the readings with them, making sure that they are injecting correctly. Once we go through all of that with them and realize that you need to increase here and you need to decrease there and we think the patient is capable to make adjustments to the insulin based on their blood sugar, we then teach the patient how to do it.”
The specialist who has gained her masters in diabetes told the MIDWEEK NATION she was concerned that there was a lack of education amongst Barbadians about the disease.
“Most of the persons who come to us would have been diagnosed with diabetes for quite a few years and while going through with them what they should actually know, you realize that there are a lot of deficits,” the 37-year-old commented.
“The responsibility is not only on us as the health care professionals to ensure they are armed with the necessary information in order to live a good life with diabetes, but also the responsibility is on the patient as well to seek to find out that information.
Do not only receive the information but also utilize it.”
