Samoa's diabetic foot clinic saves limbs and cuts costs

Pacific countries have some of the highest rates of diabetes in the world, and complications that aren't seen to promptly often lead to amputation.

While the World Health Organisation estimates that at least half of these can be prevented with proper care, amputation rates continue to rise in developing countries.

But a diabetic foot clinic in Samoa is helping to reverse the trend, by giving better quality care at a fraction of the cost of a hospital admission.

Katrina McGrath is a clinical project officer at the disability and development not-for-profit Motivation Australia, which opened the clinic in partnership with the Samoa National Health Service last year, after realising that many of their wheelchair clients were diabetic amputees.

McGrath says in Samoa there wasn’t prospective service of the impact of the amputation and the disability that it cause was that a lot of people were not able to provide for their family and be involved in the social and cultural aspects of their life.

“Within Samoa there was no real out patient service for patients that had diabetic foot wounds and in most cases the wound were not getting consistent treatment until the clients were hospitalized and we were trying to get to the clients before foot wounds became such a problem that they needed to be hospitalized or their leg being amputated,” said McGrath.

One of the reasons for not turning to hospital was the fear of getting amputation itself and some people do not turn to hospital until last option of amputation is left.

 “A lot is about awareness programs and education and if the problems are presented earlier, the wound would be easier to treat,” added McGrath.

If the diabetic foot clinics are able to get the clients before the wounds are worse or infected, the wound would be treated which has a greater capacity to be treated emphasized McGrath.  

Photo: Motivation Australia