7000 patients with diabetes registered at the Center for Control and Prevention of Diabetes in Iran

The center is in Mashad, northeast of Iran. The CEO of the center Javad Jahani Mehr says that this center was established in 2005 with the mission to provide care to patients with diabetes and control the disease. He emphasizes that such infrastructure will be coming along soon in other major cities of Iran. He stressed the point that more than half of patients with diabetes in Iran are not aware of their high blood sugar. On the other hand 99 percent of those who know they have diabetes are under poor blood sugar control he added. The major policy intervention to be implemented is to educate people how to deal with the condition , which is the core policy intervention devised for such clinical centers , he said.

My comment: It’s very promising that targeted interventions for high-cost /high mortality diseases and risk factors are getting attention by Iranians. It would be great if the clinical effects of such interventions could be measured and compared with traditional care being received by the rest of patients with diabetes.

Link to the news: http://www.irna.ir/NewsShow.aspx?NID=30525826

Source: Irna, online, Accessed on August 18,2011. News Code: 30525826

Inadequate insurance and shortage in providers to support patients with burn

"Tehran Province has the highest burn-related mortality among all provinces in the country" says the officials of the Forensic Medicine Center. It is claimed that Tehran has only one hospital (Shahid Motahhari) that deals with burn cases at sub-specialty level. There are handful of other private hospitals giving care to patients with mild to moderate burns but not to severe cases. The ILNA's journalist reports that 2,690 people with burns die annually [in the country]. However, the number of beds per capita for burn cases has been going down in recent years. The CEO of the Motahhari Inpatient Burn Center (Hospital) says that insurance plans do not cover all costs of patients with significant burns and charities have to be more active to collect money to support these patients. He says that adding one Burn-ICU bed to the hospital costs some 60,000 dollars and the hospital is struggling with economic barriers to expand its facilities to provide adequate care to patients with burn.

My comment: The highest mortality may be due to the fact that cases with severe burn may be constantly referred to hospitals in Tehran.

Reference: Iranian Labor News Agency, online , accessed on August 17, 2011. News Code:202485

Link: http://www.ilna.ir/newsText.aspx?ID=202485