Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh has pledged to tack­le the is­sue of ges­ta­tion­al di­a­betes in 2020.

On Christ­mas Day, Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh stat­ed this is one of sev­er­al ma­jor projects they’ll fo­cus on next year.

The min­is­ter says it is one of the most im­por­tant in­ter­ven­tions they in­tend to un­der­take, in or­der to deal with di­a­betes in this coun­try. He notes that in the case of many women with ges­ta­tion­al di­a­betes, their chil­dren could de­vel­op type-one di­a­betes.

“Those ba­bies then tend to de­vel­op type-one di­a­betes as chil­dren, and then they are di­a­bet­ic for life,” he points out. “if we can catch those moth­ers and ba­bies ear­ly in their preg­nan­cy, and in­ter­vene with a na­tion­al plan to treat them, you will have less com­pli­ca­tions in child­birth; you will have few­er ba­bies born 9lbs plus; and,” the min­is­ter as­serts, “you will have few­er ba­bies de­vel­op­ing type-one di­a­betes.”

Mean­while, the Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go is ap­plaud­ing the min­istry’s ini­tia­tive.

Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent, An­drew Dhanoo, says a com­pre­hen­sive ed­u­ca­tion pro­gramme for moth­ers (and women plan­ning to be­come moth­ers) is a crit­i­cal com­po­nent to suc­cess­ful­ly deal­ing with the is­sue.

He says many moth­ers with ges­ta­tion­al di­a­betes strug­gle with con­trol­ling their blood sug­ars, even though they are as­sist­ed with their di­ets by nu­tri­tion­ists dur­ing their preg­nan­cy.

“One of the sug­ges­tions we want to put for­ward is that moth­ers have ac­cess to blood sug­ar mon­i­tors and strips dur­ing their preg­nan­cies,” he ex­plains, “pos­si­bly through CDAP or some oth­er pro­gramme in which the strips could be sub­sidised for them. The fact is, on­ly through mon­i­tor­ing would they know how to con­trol their blood sug­ars bet­ter.”

In ad­di­tion, An­drew Dhanoo says prop­er da­ta col­lec­tion is crit­i­cal to the ini­tia­tive’s suc­cess, not­ing that the kinds of in­for­ma­tion nec­es­sary for de­ci­sion-mak­ing in­cludes the rea­sons why moth­ers are de­vel­op­ing com­pli­ca­tions or why there are high in­fant mor­tal­i­ty rates, among oth­er is­sues. He ar­gues the da­ta is very im­por­tant to guide de­ci­sion-mak­ers in how to treat with these is­sues.

The Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent notes that at present, da­ta is gath­ered man­u­al­ly and pa­per-based.

He is hope­ful that a com­put­er-based sys­tem will be in­tro­duced as part of the ar­se­nal the min­istry in­tends to use to bat­tle ges­ta­tion­al di­a­betes.

“Most im­por­tant is the Peri­na­tal Com­put­er Sys­tem,” he says. “I’ve had com­plaints from nurs­es who have been us­ing the peri­na­tal records-keep­ing or fil­ing sys­tem, sim­ply be­cause the da­ta is be­ing col­lect­ed but it isn’t be­ing digi­tised. What would be re­quired,” he ex­plains, “is in­ter­net-ca­pa­ble com­put­er sys­tems at every pre­na­tal, post-na­tal or pub­lic clin­ic in the health care sys­tem. You al­so will need da­ta en­try clerks who are trained in how to en­ter the da­ta, as well as pro­fes­sion­als ca­pa­ble of analysing the da­ta the sys­tem col­lects.”

An­drew Dhanoo says there is a sys­tem cre­at­ed by the Pan-Amer­i­can Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (PA­HO) which the min­istry can utilise. He be­lieves PA­HO would be will­ing to as­sist the min­istry with a project to digi­tised med­ical records.