St. Kitts Diabetes Association Spreads Awareness

(ZIZ News) – The St. Kitts Diabetes Association is working to keep diabetics and interested persons abreast of information as it relates to diabetic health.

This is according to the association’s Public Relations Officer Dr. Reginald O’loughlin.

“We have been organizing various forums to educate and update diabetics and family members, care givers of diabetics, about various issues associated with the particular disease. The hope is that we can reduce the incidents of some of the complications—the common complications—we so often hear about; the amputations, the blindness, the kidney failure and as such we tend to organise forums dealing with a specific topic,” he said.

According to Dr. O’Loughlin, the association hosts meetings or forums, once every three months. At that time, individuals are given the opportunity to learn about diabetes and join the association.

Dr. O’Loughlin also spoke of some of the areas of discussions of past meetings and mentioned plans for upcoming meetings.

“At the last forum we did address diabetes and the kidneys—kidneys being one of the organs that tend to be affected by diabetes; prior to that we addressed diabetes and the foot. We had a local surgeon talking about the issues related to the foot and diabetes,” he said.

Outlining future projects, he said “We still have plans to organize a forum in relation to the heart because heart disease and diabetes are integrally linked and if one does not control their diabetes and to a certain extent high blood pressure and cholesterol issues then we can unfortunately see incidents and complications in relation to that vital organ the heart.”

The St. Kitts Diabetes Association is preparing to host a “Diabetes and the Eye” forum on Sunday February 28th at the St. Georges Anglican Church Hall on Victoria Road at 3pm.