News

There's an increase of young diabetic patients

May 30, 2018 7:45 pm

There’s an increasing number of young people now being diagnosed with diabetes in Fiji and many are not even aware of having the chronic disease.

Diabetes Fiji Chair, Dr. John Hawea says many people have diabetes for a long period of time before they’re diagnosed and this results in an unexpected amputation.

“Realistically, the ages are getting younger and just last several days at the Lautoka Hospital we amputated a thirty-year-old iTaukei woman – whose yet to be married and she had type two diabetes. So she found out on admission to the hospital that she was diabetic and that’s almost like a norm now for us, for people to find out that they’re diabetic when they are being presented with a problem like that.”

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Dr. Hawea says people are turning to cheap unhealthy alternatives and not taking awareness campaigns seriously until they’re diagnosed with the killer disease.

“What I am concerned about is how much do people own these educational health promotions or how much do they buy into it because it’s until people allow themselves to be educated and make the changes necessary – so they either prevent themselves from having diabetes or if they do have diabetes and prevent the complications that will end their lives earlier or have a major event like a heart attack, stroke or amputation.”

Diabetes Fiji says according to the Health Ministry’s 2012 statistics survey – one in three people in the country has diabetes which simply means that close to 30% of the population is actually diabetic.