One out of three persons either has diabetes or has a relative with the disease, says W. Rufus Allen, President of the Diabetes Support Group, during his address at the opening ceremony of the Diabetic Health Fair held in the foyer of the Rand Memorial Hospital on Monday morning.
Allen went on to say there is a diabetic support group which works like Alcoholics Anonymous where they support each other.
“We find that with diabetes the important thing is education,” he continued. “The better informed you are, the better you are able to control your diabetes. What happens most of the time is that people go to the doctor and they want the doctor to give them a pill, or they want the doctor to give them an injection. But that does not control the disease. It is not about taking medication it is about what you do with this disorder – if you can reverse it, manage it or control it.”
Allen stated that his group is about the management and control of diabetes and persons being able to live a better life with diabetes.
The Health Fair was declared open by Cherlyn Bain, Principal Nursing Officer, Nursing Administrator who said, diabetes is not just a local concern, nor a regional concern, nor a national concern, but an international one because 346 million people so far have been diagnosed with diabetes and by the year 2030 the World Health Organization projects that diabetes will double between 2005- 2030.
Bain said that everyone should be concerned that more than 50 percent of the households in The Bahamas has diabetes in some type or form, whether they are predisposed to have it or have types 1 or B.
