Free screening to mark 100 years of Centennial celebrations |22 May 2017
A nationwide free kidney disease screening project targeting the entire population of Seychelles over the age of 40 will start on May 28.
The project is part of activities being organised by the Lions Club of Seychelles to celebrate the founding of Lion’s Club International 100 years ago.
This event is being supported by the Ministry of Health, Airtel and the National Arts Council (NAC).
The Lion’s Club of Seychelles will provide all the medical equipment and supplies as they will procure four state-of-the-art machines costing US $13,000 which will allow all the tests to be done at one-go in five minutes.
The ministry will cater for logistics and staff members who will work together with the Lions volunteers during the screening camp which will start at 9am in the Stad Popiler car park.
The whole project targeting over 20,000 people is estimated to amount to between R1.8 and R2 million, and the screening includes blood test, blood pressure, body mass index and urinal test.
Lions Club of Seychelles president Ramu Pillay said this is one of the biggest services being provided by the club.
“The Lions’ main mission was to deal with eye care, but recently we have extended to other areas such as diabetic-related disease such as kidney problems. I think Seychelles is the first African country doing this screening which will help our people nationally,” he said.
He thanked the chief executive (CEO) of the Health Care Agency Dr Danny Louange for his collaboration for helping make this event a reality.
Dr Louange said it is a privilege for the Ministry of Health to support such an enormous initiative which they feel is top priority to screen all adults above 40 years for diabetes, hypertension, renal diseases, kidney function and haemoglobin.
“It’s a first of its kind in Africa and it will give us a lot of information about our population,” he said.
Commenting on the current situation of adults above 40 in Seychelles, he said 11 out of 100 people have diabetes, while 15 out of 100 have hypertension.
“These numbers we have are from surveys and this screening project will provide us with more accurate figures. Diabetes and hypertension are non-communicable diseases which can lead to other several diseases such as heart or kidney diseases, so this programme will also help us with early detection of these diseases to prevent further progression,” he said.
He said if any problems are detected then the patients will be referred to a specialist at the hospital.
Among the activities being held to mark the centennial celebrations, two events will take place on Monday 29 when the final batch of eye glasses will be distributed to a group of students with eye problems at the Seychelles Institute for Teacher Education (Site) and a cataract surgery camp will kick off on the same day.
A team of experts will be flown in from Lions Eye hospital in Kenya, including two specialists who will see and operate on cataract patients for three days.
The public is advised to contact the Ministry of Health’s eye clinic to book an appointment as soon as possible.
Seychelles has had the privilege of being the First Centennial Lions Club and now they have the honour to release the first centennial stamp on May 30 at State House at 9am.