New machine to help fight against killer disease

 Diabetic patients at Angau General Hospital will now benefit from a machine that can analyse blood and urine for sugar levels in less than 10 minutes.
The machine, donated by Flinders University in South Australia, is the third in Lae after a successful partnership with the Morobe provincial administration.
The machine was commissioned yesterday by Morobe Governor Kelly Naru.
Two machines are located at Wampar and Malahang health centres.
Physicist Dr Cathy Timothy, who deals with diabetic patients, described the machine which looks like a big telephone as: “A point of care tool which will not diagnose but control and manage the disease in patients and does tests and gives results in less than 10 minutes.”
“I can’t do well if I don’t have this machine, it’s easily accessible by patients.”
Timothy said the diagnostic rate of diabetes was at 7% and had overtaken HIV/AIDS at 5%, with about 10 new cases established at Angau every month.
There are 246 patients, there of which 150 are women and 22% are  amputated while 12% develop eye complications.
Angau acting chief executive Dr Jim Abrahams hailed the partnership and assured the hospital’s aim to improve its services.
“Here at Angau you can be assured that we will step up, it’s our duty to the community,” Abrahams said.