Four out of ten surgeries carried out at major hospitals are for foot problems caused by Diabetes.

Diabetes Fiji Trustee Professor Eddie McCaig says this is partly because many people do not know they have Diabetes until serious symptoms appear.

Professor McCaig says they’ve found a lot of people are surprised when they are diagnosed with Diabetes.

“We know up to 16 percent of our population are diabetics and we think it might as high as 30 percent and there was a survey done a few years which shows 16 percent randomly people of the street were tested, 16 percent had diabetes and 50 percent of them did not know they had diabetes.”

Professor Mc Caig says on an average one amputation is conducted every 12 hours.

“A large number of them come with gangrenes dead feet, smelling ulcers and infected feet and they never knew they were diabetic but these people have severe diabetes and this is quite sad, the numbers are extraordinary.”

People who are at risk of Diabetes include those with family history, those who are inactive, people on wrong diet and those who are obese.

He says this also puts a burden on medical services.