Set up by Singapore's largest private health-care group, Parkway Group Healthcare, the first comprehensive care centre for the disease opened yesterday at the Paragon, in the heart of the Orchard Road shopping belt.

Newly appointed Minister of State for Health Heng Chee How also declared open Parkway's Preventive Healthcare Centre within the centre's premises.

This other centre helps people at risk of heart or other diseases to lead more healthy lifestyles.

The centres cost a total of $800,000 to set up.

The Diabetes Care Centre's medical director, Dr Akira Wu, said that while the five diabetes care centres in the public hospitals focused on managing the disease for the masses, his centre would offer personalised care.

'The nurses, dieticians and therapists play the lead role at the centre - not the doctors. They will be the ones monitoring and managing the patients, calling and nagging them to ensure that they keep to the lifestyle and food changes - every day if there's a need for it,' he said.

Charges on each visit for consultation, blood tests and drugs start from $300, he added.

He explained that with proper management of lifestyle habits, a diabetes patient could spend 40 per cent less than one who allowed his illness to worsen to the point where he would need specialist care for the heart, kidney or eye complications that set in.

Aside from serving Singapore patients, the centre also aims to become a one-stop centre for diabetics from Asia and South-east Asia.

Dr Wu said that each overseas patient will be given a glucometer with which to measure his blood sugar levels until his next check-up, when the stored readings will be culled from the meter.

Communication between visits will be by e-mail.

Diabetes, the eighth most common cause of death in Singapore, has hit 8.2 per cent or over 300,000 Singaporeans, the 2004 National Health Survey found.

About 15 per cent of the population is at risk of it.

The two public-sector health-care groups - the National Healthcare Group (NHG) and Singapore Health Services (SingHealth) - each manage more than 11,000 diabetics in the five management centres between them.

NHG has diabetes care centres at Alexandra, National University and Tan Tock Seng hospitals, while SingHealth runs those at Changi General and the Singapore General hospitals.

The two health-care groups are planning to set up registries by the middle of next year to track every diabetic who sets foot in a public hospital or polyclinic.

These registries will carry the patient's name, age, his blood sugar and blood pressure levels and the health services he is using.

The Straits Times, 16 June 2006 

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