South Western Sydney Local Health District tackles diabetes head on

THE State Government will spend an extra $1 million a year for four years to change to way diabetes is treated in hospitals in southwest Sydney — NSW’s diabetes capital.

Macarthur Diabetes Service head David Simmons.

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A $4 MILLION investment over the next four years will bolster southwest Sydney’s bid to fight diabetes.

The money will be spent on new services and more staff, with clinics for diabetic women planning to have a family to deal with an expected large increase in cases in the next five years.

They will also expanding paedetric services in Campbelltown Hospital because children’s hospitals were too busy and this will be expanded to other district hospitals including Liverpool.

Up to 35 per cent of inpatients across the South Western Sydney Local Health District — independent of the treatment they came in for — have diabetes.

Macarthur Diabetes Service head David Simmons said people with diabetes needed to stay in hospitals longer, and had higher admission and death rates.

South western Sydney is the diabetes capital of NSW and by 2021 there will be more than 55,000 people affected by the disease.

Campbelltown Hospital will be providing new services and specialists to treat diabetes.

Nationally, it is the sixth highest cause of death by disease in Australia.

“We’re starting to develop cutting edge strategies to deal with different issues,” Professor Simmons said.

“We’ve got a range of projects that will start rolling out.”

“Having a paediatric service allows us to cope with the demand when we’ve not had the resources for it in the past.”

Professor Simmons said teams at Liverpool, Fairfield, Bankstown-Lidcombe, Bowral and district and Campbelltown hospitals were expanding to address the growing number of women affected by gestational diabetes.

“Some women require additional support around their blood glucose level monitoring and education on healthy eating and physical activity,” he said.

“Our aim is to reduce their risk of complications.”

The health district is also leading the way with the Oz-DAFNE Type 1 diabetes education program with an endocrinologist, trained educators and dietitians.

“We know type 1 diabetes requires substantial skills and knowledge to be able to vary insulin injections on a day-by-day basis, and Oz-DAFNE has been shown to reduce hypoglycaemia and other complications.

The health district will introduce a database called Biogrid which will collect detailed information about diabetic patients to improve future services.

Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs when there’s too much glucose in the blood because the body is not producing insulin or not using insulin properly.

Type 2 diabetes represents up to 90 per cent of all cases in Australia