MSN Laboratories has donated a Digital Biothesiometer to the Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH) to support patient care as part of its corporate social responsibility.
Dr. Hamidu Abdulai, Director of Pharmacy of TTH disclosed this in an interview with THE CUSTODIAN.
Digital Biothesiometer is an instrument used for detection of vibration perception threshold (VPT), which has shown to be strongly associated with foot ulceration.
It is mostly used in diabetic patients at risk of peripheral neuropathy for foot screening and examining early symptoms of diabetic foot ulcer for early detection.
Biothesiometry measures the marginal sensation and helps quantitate the threshold and these aid in the detection of neuropathy.
THE CUSTODIAN gathered that, Dr. Hamidu Abdulai, who is also the Executive Secretary of the Drug and Therapeutics Committee (DTC) engaged the Country Manager, Mr. Sujit Kumar Rai of MSN Laboratories, a Pharmaceutical Company in Ghana early this year during one of their working visits to TTH and sought support to promote healthcare delivery.
The company gave assurance of its support to improve patient care in TTH being one of the key referral hospitals in the country.
The Management of the TTH was grateful to MSN Laboratories for the contribution towards quality healthcare delivery in the hospital.
It encouraged other institutions and stakeholders to work in collaboration with TTH in achieving the ultimate goal as the Centre of Excellence for quality tertiary health care, medical education and research.
In the first week of November this year, MSN Laboratories donated a Biothesiometer for the management of diabetes in TTH.
According to studies, Diabetes mellitus is now one of the major challenges for many health systems in Africa and imposes huge financial costs to states and government facilities.
Peripheral neuropathy is one of the leading complications of diabetes with an estimated prevalence of approximately 20% in diabetic patients.
It is the major causal factor in the development of foot ulcerations and non-traumatic amputations in diabetic subjects.
Over time, people living with diabetes develop nerve damage which sometimes presents without symptoms but can manifest as pain, numbness, and weakness in the extremities.
With the increasing prevalence of diabetes, there is the need for a Digital Biothesiometer in health care facilities for early detection of neuropathy to optimize effective risk management, thus improving the quality of life of these patients.
