Kolkata : Keeping up its pledge before Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee regarding roll-out of healthcare service for juvenile diabetes and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in children, UNICEF has partnered and started working with Government of West Bengal’s Department of Health and Family Welfare (DH&FW) mobilizing technical expertise of IPGMER & SSKM Hospital to take the treatment and care for the children suffering from non-communicable diseases such as juvenile diabetes to the grassroots level.
Back in July and August, UNICEF officials held meetings with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Principal Secretary DH&FW and praised the State’s initiative to manage diabetes in children and promised for greater collaboration to scale-up the prevention and control of NCDs in children.
Also known as Type 1 diabetes, the disease is caused when a child’s body destroys cells in the pancreas that produce insulin to keep blood sugar levels stable. As a result, the children have to inject insulin several times a day.
“UNICEF is collaborating with State’s DH&FW and IPGEMR & SSKM Hospital to develop primary health care (PHC) oriented model for prevention and control of NCDs in children through strengthening of community and primary healthcare systems and provisions,” Dr Monjur Hossain, Chief of UNICEF in West Bengal, and a former paediatric practitioner himself, said today at a programme organised by West Bengal Academy of Paediatrics.
Recently, Dr Monjur held meetings with experts at IPGMER & SSKM Hospital, and visited the laboratory, clinic, and other facilities to take stock of juvenile diabetes treatment and care in the state. UNICEF inked the partnership with IPGMER & SSKM Hospital, alongside joining hands with West Bengal Academy of Paediatrics to support the DH&FW and District Health Authorities to take the treatment to all districts.
“As the first step, UNICEF plans to train healthcare providers like medical officers, staff nurses, ANMs, ASHA workers, community health officers on juvenile diabetes and other childhood non-communicable diseases (NCDs). It will help in identification and referral of more children to the NCD clinics,” Dr Vandana Bhatia, Health Specialist of UNICEF, said.
Now, five district hospitals in Howrah, Hooghly, North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas, Purba Bardhaman and SSKM Hospital have NCD clinics to address Type 1 diabetes and nearly 600 children are being treated annually. Another 10 district hospitals have received the government’s approval for starting the clinics and later the facility will be extended across the state.
Dr Monjur said that UNICEF’s goal is to make treatment and care for NCDs in children more easily and equitably accessible to everyone in the society to ensure that no child is left behind.
“To bring healthcare services for juvenile diabetes at the village level, the frontline health staff needs to be trained as most of these children are remaining undiagnosed now. From symptoms – such as a child complaining of extreme thirst, frequent toilet urge, thinning down and extreme tiredness – they should refer these children to the clinics and save their lives,” Dr Sujoy Ghosh, Professor of Endocrinology and Metabolism at IPGMER/SSKM Hospital, who is the lead technical expert in the joint initiative of GoWB and UNICEF to scale-up the services, told the audience at the programme.
As per the data available with Young Diabetic Registry of India, five out of one lakh (100,000) children suffer from juvenile diabetes in the country. When all clinics start operation and training is done, more patients will be identified and treated in the state. “With the changing behavioural pattern and consumption of junk food by young adults and children are leading to the growing endemicity of non-communicable diseases among them across the country,” Dr L Swasticharan, Addl DDG& Director (EMR) of Union Health Ministry, said in a video conference at the programme. This was also echoed by Shikha Vardhan, ADG NP-NCE of Health Ministry in her speech.
Praising the initiative of West Bengal government, Dr Vivek Virendra Singh, Chief of Health in UNICEF India country office said that the state’s model of Type 1 diabetes care will be spread across the country.
Dr Nitai Mandal, Deputy Director of NCD at state health department, told the doctors present that the state government has been scaling up healthcare services for NCDs across the state.
Dr GV Basavaraja, President of Indian Academy of Paediatrics highlighted the picture of the high number of people suffering from non-communicable diseases in India and urged the doctors to extend all necessary helps to the patients.
