With more than 2900 Riverina residents with diabetes and one in three of these developing diabetic related eye disease, and new program reaching Griffith aims to reduce these numbers and prevent blindness.
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The new national diabetes eye screening program, announced by the government last Friday, will create an interface between the National Diabetes Service Scheme (NDSS) database and Oculo – a cloud-based platform which connects eye care providers to create a new digitally-enabled screening and early-detection system.
For Diabetes Educator at Griffith Community Health Yvonne Peisley, prevention is the best cure, and encourages Griffith and the wider MIA to take advantage of opportunities like this to enable better management of diabetes and resulting issues.
People may not be aware there are optometrists here in Griffith that can monitor their eyes so well, to minimise or prevent eye issues related to diabetes.
- Diabetes Educator at Griffith Community Health Yvonne Peisley.
“A lot of people in Griffith, and it depends on the personality, won’t get the regular check ups they need, or become complacent with their issues,” Mrs Peisley said.
“We do a lot of work in the MIA community to educate and raise awareness of lifestyle and management programs for those with diabetes, and it all comes down to the old adage prevention is the best cure.
“It may seem like a daunting task, but by making those changes, getting regular check-up and monitoring your health, we can easily prevent someone from going blind – which I have seen happen.”
Co-funded by Specsavers who has partnered with Diabetes Australia to promote patient awareness and mobilisation, Griffith optometrist Sunny Singh has welcomed the initiative.
“Diabetic eye disease is one of the most common complications associated with diabetes but it can be easily managed if detected and treated early and almost all cases of sight-threatening diabetic eye disease are preventable,” Dr Singh said.
More than 2,900 residents with diabetes in the Riverina area will develop some form of diabetic eye disease in their lifetime, he is hopeful this initiative will prevent blindness.
“While none of them should lose their sight, unfortunately this won’t be the case because currently most people with diabetes are unaware that their eyes can be affected and therefore aren’t getting their eyes tested regularly and obtaining timely treatment.”
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As a Specsavers optometrist, Dr Singh believes this program is a huge step forward in the fight against diabetes-related blindness as it will target those in the community most at risk in a systematic way.
“We see patients with diabetes that can go years without experiencing any problems and then out of the blue, without any symptoms, one of their eye tests shows blood vessels starting to leak in the back of the eye or a build-up of fluid at the macula,” Dr Singh said.
“Without timely detection and treatment these patients could end up losing their vision.”
In another step to aid early detection, Specsavers Griffith recently introduced hospital-grade diagnostic imaging technology, OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography), which enables its optometrists to obtain even more detailed information about the eye than ever before.