In order to make diabetes health care available, accessible and affordable to rural people, the ‘Sai Rural Diabetes Specialities Centre’ – a unit of Dr. Mohan’s DSC has been set up at Chunampet in Kancheepuram District, Tamilnadu, about 100 kms away from Chennai.    Mr. Ulrik Uldall Nielsen, Programme Coordinator, WDF, Denmark inaugurated the Centre on 21st March 2007. Mr. N. Ravi, Chairman and Mr. S. S. Rajasekar, Managing Trustee, NAF were also present on the occasion.

The facilities of this rural diabetes centre is also being utilized for ‘MDRF – WDF Rural Diabetes Telemedicine Project’ implemented by the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRF) at Chunampet with the support of the World Diabetes Foundation (WDF), Denmark and the Indian Space Research Organization [ISRO], Bangalore, which is supporting this project by providing satellite connection with all necessary hardware for the telemedicine facility. This rural centre will monitor and treat diabetes and associated complications for the poor and needy in and around Chunampet, and thus serve as a Nodal Centre of Excellence for rural diabetes care in India.

DETAILS OF THE PROJECT      

The MDRF/WDF rural diabetes telemedicine project is a three year project, which will be conducted in a cluster of villages at Chunampet  in Kancheepuram District, Tamilnadu about 100 Kms from Chennai with the following objectives:

• To implement prevention of diabetes at three levels (i.e. Primary, Secondary and Tertiary diabetes prevention) in a rural area in Tamil Nadu. Expected number of individuals to be benefited from the awareness programme –nearly 200,000 individuals
• To encourage community participation and empowering the local people especially women and youth (~50 individuals) to become educators and spokespersons to adopt a healthy lifestyle.
• To screen for diabetes (self reported plus newly detected) and ‘pre-diabetes’ i.e. impaired glucose tolerance in ~50,000 individuals aged ³ 20 yrs.
• To screen for diabetic complications in ~ 3000 diabetic subjects  in rural areas with particular respect to eye and foot complications using telemedicine as a novel tool.
• To improve access to diabetes health care including screening and treatment of its complications in rural India by constructing a Rural Diabetes Centre at Chunampet.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT 

Expected to have a profound and immediate benefit to the rural community as it is a public health initiative 

• Will serve as a model in community based diabetes prevention programmes for rural areas in India and other developing countries
• Will increases awareness on diabetes & associated complications
• Facilitate detection of undiagnosed diabetes and estimate of the true prevalence of diabetes and its complications in rural area
• Project fits in with Non-communicable Diseases Surveillance Project of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), World Health Organization (WHO) and Government of India.