Apollo plans diabetes clinic in Kolkata

Kolkata: Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals(AGH) plans to bring the dedicated diabetic care clinics branded 'Sugar' to Kolkata in around five to six months time after the first clinic was rolled out in Hyderabad in September this year.

Currently, around six Apollo Clinics operate in the city apart from a heart centre and the main hospital near Beleghata. 'All these clinics including the main hospital run diabetes care programmes', said Rupali Basu, chief operating officer, AGH.

'The upcoming ones would be dedicated diabetes care facilities', Basu said.

AGH currently offers 50 specialities and has around 200 clinics operating in the main hospital. She did not want to give out the details on investment lined up for the upcoming 'Sugar' clinics. At the time of the launch of the first 'Sugar' clinic in Hyderabad Apollo had declared that it planned to roll out around 200 outlets in the country. In the wake of rising instances of juvenille diabetes, AGH is also planning to ramp up its diabetes awareness campaign in schools.

'We are running interactive question-answer sessions with school children, who can write to us with their querries apart from running Diabetic clubs and rehabilitation groups in the hospital', Basu said. It has five full-time endocrinologists in the panel including one paediatric endocrinologist apart from the visiting doctors in its clinics.

Juvenille diabetes was rising at the rate of 3 per cent per year, while among adults the growth rate is around 5 per cent. The theme for World Diabetes Day 2007-08 is 'Diabetes in children & adolescents' that coincides with the Children's Day in India.

It is estimated that around 15 per cent of the urban population in the country has diabetes which is dubbed primarily as a lifestyle related disorder, while the disease affects around 5 per cent of the rural population.