Apollo to launch 100 Sugar Clinics in the next 90 days

Aimed at combating the menace of diabetes in India, Apollo group of hospitals recently announced the launch of 100 Sugar Clinics around the country in 90 days at Chennai. These clinics will manage the life cycle of a diabetic and work towards minimising the associated morbidity and mortality. These clinics working on a specifically developed clinical pathway will offer standardised care to the diabetic patients.

India is grappling with lifestyle diseases such as hypertension, stroke, obesity and diabetes. But the problem is not just that, it is also estimated that over the next decade lifestyle diseases will grow at the faster rate than infectious diseases in the country. Diabetes in India is no longer considered an epidemic; it has crossed that level and now has become an exorbitantly growing large public health problem.

With sedentary lifestyle, the prevalence of diabetes in India has reached the point of 3.7 per cent of the total population. In the 1970s, only 2.1 per cent of the total Indian population living in urban areas was diabetic. Today that figure touches the mark of 12.1 per cent for adults over the age of 20. The incidence is higher in the south than in the north, particularly in cities such as Chennai and Hyderabad, where about 16 per cent of the population is diabetic. India has been referred as a diabetes capital of the World by the International Journal of Diabetes in developing countries as 1.4 million new cases of diabetes get detected in the country each year.

With the sharp increase in the number of diabetic cases in the country, absence of proper facilities to manage this sugar disease is an additional challenge. It is estimated that India spends almost $21 billion on managing diabetes. The cost of managing the complications of this disease is in multiples of the actual cost of treatment of the disease. Diabetes reaches to the stage of complication due to lack of awareness, compliance, proper facilities and knowledge about multi-functional approach. 

Controlling blood sugar levels, reducing the pharmaceutical requirement for controlling blood sugar levels, close monitoring and early intervention for complications of diabetes are important components of managing diabetes. This needs a holistic approach. In the absence of an integrated diabetes management program in India, Apollo group of Hospitals puts a foot forward in introducing an integrated mechanism that manages diabetes efficiently and prevents the complications of the disease. Sugar Clinics brings together a programme that offers a 360 degree approach to managing diabetes. Sugar Clinics offer exclusive facilities catering to all the needs of a diabetic.

“Education and wellness management will help reduce the rising incidence of lifestyle diseases. One of these is diabetes. Keeping in mind the rising burden of diabetes, India would need an integrated framework that would enable diabetics manage their lifestyle better. This would ensure reduction and prevention of complications, which is a key for these patients.” said Dr Prathap C Reddy, Chairman, Apollo Group of Hospitals.

Apollo Sugar Clinic is a complete and integrated solution to manage diabetes and offers customized solutions to different sections of the diabetic population. Upload/Update of Sugar count on SMS/mobile application, personalised web page for each patient, and 24X7 call centers’ are some of the features of this programme.

Over the last three years our effort was to get the model right, which was then implemented over a pilot in select centers during the last one year. The outcome of the pilot has been very encouraging which leads us to believe that we now have a tool which can potentially change the way diabetes is managed and treated in India.