The Fiona Kwok Complications Screening Program
We are proud to run the ‘Fiona Kwok Diabetes Complications Screening Program’ in honour of Fiona Kwok. This program aims to prevent and reverse complications of diabetes for those in disadvantaged countries and disaster areas, to improve quality of life and increase life expectancy.
Fiona was a person with Type 1 diabetes, who found great pleasure and meaning in her work helping people with diabetes. She saw it as a great privilege to be able to help people improve their quality of life, applied herself to the task with all of her heart, a great deal of spunk, a dark sense of humour and wit. Fiona was an employee of Medtronic who lived with type 1 diabetes and died at age 31 – her family and Medtronic have provided funding to support the program.
The Fiona Kwok complications screening program is usually conducted during Insulin for Life supported youth camps (in the past in Ecuador, Maldives and the Philippines) and more recently in the Philippines community screening days as well as after disaster responses. The program is based around the use of an instrument which we can transport to the clinics. This instrument measures HbA1c, a blood test which shows average blood glucose level over the past 2 to 3 months, blood lipids and urinary albumin (albuminuria) are also measured. The measurement of these pathology markers together with blood pressure checks and if we have someone skilled in its use portal portable retinal photos which we then get graded by an optometrist or ophthalmologist, provide valuable information about kidney function and eye health[Handrinoos L].
Machine used to measure HbA1c
Portable retinal scan
Children attending a clinic in Ecuador
