Leading diabetologists and health experts have called for establishing around 3,000 diabetic foot clinics with telehealth facilities throughout Pakistan, especially at district, tehsil and taluka levels, to prevent around 1,000 amputations that are being carried out on a daily basis in the country due to diabetic foot ulcers.
They also urged the authorities to make arrangements for the provision of specialised footwear for people with diabetes because especially designed shoes and insoles have proved to be effective in preventing amputations and saving the limbs of 90 per cent of the people living with diabetes.
They stressed on the training of general physicians, and said that the spreading of awareness about prevention of diabetes and its complications is also a need of the hour.“According to the International Diabetes Federation’s [IDF] data, around 33 million people are living with diabetes in Pakistan, of whom three to four million people develop diabetic foot ulcers, which is a serious complication of type-2 diabetes,” Dr Saiful Haq said during the concluding ceremony of an international health conference.
