Doha: Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) has launched a diabetes awareness campaign in all government schools, on the occasion of World Diabetes Day, which falls on November 14 each year.
PHCC said that diabetes is one of the most prevalent chronic diseases among students in government schools in Qatar.
Head of School Health Department at PHCC, Dr. Layla Al Dahnaim, said that with the recent technological and social developments and the change in lifestyles associated with less sports activities and kinetic practices due to reliance obesity is rising among students. It is associated that cases of type 2 diabetes have appeared among school students, in addition to cases of type 1 diabetes, especially among middle and high school students.
Al Dahnaim explained that the School Health Department has provided all government schools with sufficient quantities of medical devices and supplies necessary to provide comprehensive nursing care for students with diabetes. In cooperation with diabetes and the endocrine team at Sidra Hospital, a comprehensive training workshop was provided to all school nurses on how to care for students with diabetes in schools. Regarding the achievements made in the context of raising awareness of diabetes, the Head of School Health at the PHCC said a protocol has been prepared for providing health care for students suffering from diabetes through school nursing as it is considered an important scientific reference that enables school nursing to provide nursing care based on approved scientific foundations.
She said this protocol clarifies the mechanism of dealing with emergency cases in detail, such as how to deal with cases of severe hyperglycemia, how to deal with cases of severe hypoglycemia, and how to calculate the number of carbohydrates in meals that students can eat at school, and that it gives him the authority to give insulin treatment safely in line with modern scientific foundations within the framework of the treatment plan issued by the treating physician.
PHCC also reported that due to the presence of a large number of students with diabetes who are treated using insulin pumps, as their number reaches more than 100 students, it plans, in cooperation with diabetes and the endocrine team at Sidra Hospital and the Qatar Diabetes Association, to hold a specialized training course for a large number of school nurses on how to deal with insulin pumps to develop school health services for students with diabetes.
