Doctors say fake faith healers deceiving people
By: Ahmad Shabir
May 8: With Kashmir like any other part of the country is witnessing alarming rise in the type 2 diabetes patients, type 1 diabetes among the children and young adults is proving to be another worry for doctors at the Sheri Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS).
The endocrinology department of SKIMS has registered at least 600 cases of type 1 diabetes in last several years with most of them children as young as 4 months old babies.
The department had started a registry for young diabetes five years ago for those below the age of 25.
“So far the OPD has registered at least 600 patients, mostly the children of all ages. Out of the registered patients seeking treatment for the disease, 90 percent have been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes,” doctors said.
Type 1 diabetes is the form of diabetes in which the pancreas is no longer able to make insulin due to the autoimmune destruction of insulin making beta cells. However scientists are yet to find out the exact cause of what leads to destruction of beta cells.
Unlike type 2 diabetes which is attributed to the sedentary lifestyle, type 1 diabetes is a completely different form of diabetes. Scientists, so far, have not been able to find out the exact cause of what leads to destruction of beta cells.
This type of diabetes is also completely insulin dependent.
In case of type 2 diabetes, the major challenge for the families of children and adolescents was to buy insulin, gluco-meters, syringes and test strips of high cost.
However, the Life for a Child (LFAC) program, according to Dr Owais, working at SKIMS as eEndocrinologist has come as a major relief for such helpless patients.
LFAC, is a charitable organization based in Sydney Australia with a motive of “No child should die of diabetes”.
The organization presently is supporting the children with type 1 diabetes in 43 countries particularly in resource limited countries.
“It was during my fellowship by International Society For Paediatric and Adolescent Diabetes (ISPAD) at John Hunter Children’s Hospital (JHCH) Newcastle Australia to learn about their diabetes care program, I came to know about the LFAC and got in touch with the people running the program. I shared with them the ordeal of our children and young adults with type 1 diabetes,” Dr Owais said.
Last year , Professor Shariq Masoodi who is heading the endocrinology department at SKIMS, Dr Owais and Professor Bruce King of JHCH approached Dr Graham Ogle , the general manager of LFAC and convinced to extend the program to Kashmir.
“Professor Ogle agreed to extend all the possible support. Under the program five hundred children presently are being provided free insulin and strips,” Dr Owais said.
He said that under this program, they are aiming to increase the life span of the children with type 1 diabetes who usually die at the age of 29 or 30 here.
“Like developed countries these patients have the life span as that of other normal people. And we also make all the possible efforts to ensure that here too no child dies of diabetes,”
Doctors are also worried over the fake faith healers deceiving the families of children with type diabetes in the name of treatment.
“We are coming across many cases where fake faith healers are deceiving the families of such children. Recently the family of a child who was on insulin had to be admitted in emergency after some fake faith healer had asked his family to stop giving him insulin,” Dr Owais said.
The faith healer had asked the family that the child cannot be diabetic and even if he is, he cannot be put on insulin.
“The family brought the child to hospital in a very bad condition as his sugar level had increased alarmingly,” the doctor said.
“People should not get deceived by such fake faith healers,” he added.
