MoH trains doctors, nurses on diabetes

MARANYANE NGWANAAMOTHO
Staff Writer | Wednesday October 20, 2010 00:00

 

 APSA International Project Manager, Veronique La Hausse, told Mmegi in an interview that the aim of the three-year pilot project is to equip trainees, who are nurses and doctors, to educate diabetic patients on how to change their lifestyles by choosing activities that are relevant to their contexts, be it culture or religion, but would still have a long-term compliance with the disease. 

'Once someone has diabetes, we take it to be critical and patients therefore have to adopt new lifestyles that will help them live longer,' she said.

She says that usually patients are given advice at hospitals and clinics but there is little or no follow-up to check if they do as advised. 'If you tell somebody something and they do not use it, it is just information they have, but if you teach them how to use it, it is education, this is what we want,' Hausse said.

APSA International Botswana also intends on developing software that will be used by health professionals to share information about diabetes patients.  All diabetes patients will be recorded with the use of the software so that there is monitoring of the chronic disease. 

'Medical practitioners will be able to access medical history of the patient at any clinic and hospital with the use of this software.  They will be able to tell if, for example, the patients' eyes had been tested or not, which treatment they have been on and when it was changed and many more.  This will prevent complications of the disease since there will be proper follow-up and monitoring of the patient,' she said.

The two-day workshop that ends today brought together 13 community doctors, 16 nurses and 10 educators from eight health care structures based in Gaborone, Maun, Francistown, Serowe, Lobatse, Mahalapye, Molepolole and Selebi-Phikwe. 

After the training, these people will be able to organise weekly group education sessions for their diabetes patients. They will be provided with educational materials by APSA International Botswana and work with them to monitor and evaluate how they (trainees) will be doing. 

The first training was held in August with a total of 39 health professionals attending.  Hausse says that the training was designed to give the attendees an extensive overview of the core principles of modern team diabetes management, thereby enabling them to understand the condition in depth, and ultimately result in real improvements in the health of people living with diabetes.

She says that the Ministry of Health and APSA International Botswana signed an agreement in April in order to develop a joint programme in the prevention and control of diabetes in Botswana.  APSA International is a non-governmental organisation based in Mauritius and has been working in diabetes prevention and education since 1992. 

In 2008, APSA International Botswana was registered as a society to support the programme of the Ministry of Health in the control of non-communicable diseases. 

The society was awarded over P3 million in grant by the World Diabetes Foundation for the development of a project on community health care, educational network and diabetes foot care in Botswana.