Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tomorrow, some of our pre-eminent researchers and medical practitioners will come to Parliament House to continue a dialogue about diabetes, which builds on the Futures Forum held in this parliament last year. It is therefore timely to talk about one of the serious complications of diabetes: diabetic foot syndrome.

Recently, I had the benefit of visiting Berlin and Hamburg to examine the German government’s plan to trial KCI Medical’s topical negative pressure treatment. This issue is very relevant following a report from Access Economics on 22 August 2008, which revealed that the obesity epidemic is costing Australia $58 billion. We know that obesity is a leading cause of type 2 diabetes.

There are many health complications for those diagnosed with diabetes and one of them is diabetic foot syndrome, which can lead to limb amputations. In fact, the International Diabetes Foundation estimates that, every 30 seconds, one person somewhere in the world loses a limb from amputation due to diabetic sores or ulcers. This issue requires urgent attention. Thanks to companies such as KCI, much headway has been made in treating diabetic foot syndrome. This treatment benefits diabetics as well as bedridden patients and others with lesions that will not heal unaided.

Diabetic foot syndrome is a risk amongst patients with type 2 diabetes—diabetes mellitus or sugar diabetes as it is commonly known—and that risk increases where they also have peripheral neuropathy and/or peripheral arterial occlusive disease. Such patients have an increased risk of amputation resulting from diabetic foot syndrome. Foot lesions affect more than 10 per cent of patients with diabetes mellitus at some point in their life and are amongst the most dreaded complications of this disease. They can cause prolonged periods of immobility and discomfort. In fact, some never heal and some are life-threatening. Year-after-year in Australia, one in every 200 diabetics loses a leg. The cost of foot ulcerations to the individual and to society is considerable. The aetiology and progression of foot lesions in diabetics requires careful management.

During my visit to Berlin and Hamburg, I was able to hear firsthand from experts in the field that a comprehensive disease management program requiring all diabetic patients to undergo a foot examination, including neuropathy and pulse status checks at least once a year, reduces the risk of complications leading to amputation. Patients at risk also have a shoe-wear check on a quarterly basis. Complementing its disease management program for diabetic foot syndrome, the German ministry has agreed to a three-year trial of KCI’s topical negative pressure treatment. This treatment is a vacuum-assisted closure for diabetic wounds.

From discussions during my visit to Germany, both in Berlin and Hamburg, there is strong support for the use of topical negative pressure treatment for the treatment of complex chronic wounds, within hospitals, in ambulatory patient care and in multiple settings outside the hospital environment. The German health ministry trials will emphasise the need for appropriate training and quality systems. This is an essential component of success for those who deliver and manage patient care both within and without the hospital environment.

I am grateful for the opportunity KCI afforded for me to speak to the health ministry and other specialists in Germany and to hear of the successful operation of these procedures, which can be lifesaving and certainly save people from a long and painful recovery from complications arising from diabetic foot syndrome. The disease management program is preferable to having to implement expensive treatment programs once a lesion occurs.

For some time now the Parliamentary Diabetes Support Group, a bipartisan group, has called on the government to ensure that people with diabetes have their feet examined regularly. I once again raise this matter in the parliament in the hope that it will become a policy in the future so as to avoid this terrible complication of diabetes in this country.