Health care practitioners get training in diabetic foot care

Care of diabetic foot

A group of doctors and nurses from primary health care institutions on the island as well as staff from the Princess Margaret Hospital (P.M.H) on Monday began a two- day advanced training workshop on the care of the diabetic foot.

The training session being held at the Public Service Training Centre in Roseau has been organized by the Health Promotion Resource Centre of the Ministry of Health as a follow up to a basic training exercise which was held last October.

Health Educator of the Health Education Unit, Adora Toussaint told GIS news  that this week’s training will expose participants to a number of elements related to the diagnosis and care of the diabetic foot.

“This time we have taken it a bit further where persons from the Ministry of Health are invited to this program… they will be looking at how to assess a diabetic foot and how to treat a diabetic foot,” she disclosed.

According to the health educator, a diabetic foot is an infected foot that has an ulcer.

“That is to say something is wrong with the foot. There is an infection in that foot and there is now an ulcer there. That is the training that our participants are getting – how to care for a person who comes in with a diabetic ulcer,” she said.

Director of Primary Health Care services in Dominica, Dr. Martin Christmas says this training will better aid health practitioners in assisting diabetic patients to prevent leg amputations.

“We [can] all appreciate that in Dominica we see a number of young people suffering with amputations, sometimes very young people at the most productive stages of their lives. This is why the Ministry of Health has taken this step to complement our diabetic foot care policy through appropriate training of persons to make sure that we don’t have such large incidents of amputations due to diabetic foot complications,” he stated.

He said the training programme aims to empower people with diabetes to take better care of their feet and to help lower cost of health care.

The programme is being facilitated by a diabetologist from Slovenia, Dr. Vilma Urbancic and her team along with local surgeons Doctors Hendrix Paul, Julian D’Armas and Spencer St. Luce.

The two -day training programme which ends on Tuesday is being done in collaboration with the Rotary Club of Dominica, the Dominica Diabetes Association and the World Diabetes Foundation.

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3 Comments

  1. Roof top
    September 14, 2012

    This is what we have to do for Dominican so that they can have even a better life and live longer. I must say thanks to the people that come up with and keep up the good work and we need to have this at all the Hospitals on island and in all the health centers. thanks again for helping my people

  2. Nudibranch
    September 12, 2012

    you have a hyperbaric chamber lying dormant, 99% of all hyberbaric cases worldwide are diabetic injury treatments… ever thought of using it?

  3. d.c.l
    September 11, 2012

    take that to possie .waste of time hospital.

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