Direct healthcare services cost of non‐healing diabetic foot wounds in an African origin population in Barbados

Indirect costs of non‐healing diabetic foot wounds in an African origin population in Barbados

“…This also impacts revenue to the Government coffers as income tax and national insurance deductions are reduced. Data from the Barbados chronic non-communicable disease and amputation statistics estimate that there are approximately 1675 Barbadians with diabetic foot complications; using this figure, the extrapolated indirect cost for the population is $4.1 M. This cost, coupled with direct cost of $12.2 M, 3 is an unsustainable burden to both the individual and the government and supports the urgent need to implement measures that mitigate against these outcomes.…”

“…When extrapolated on a national level, this yielded an estimate of USD12.2 M in annual direct healthcare services cost, 6% of overall government total healthcare expenditure. 3 Here we report the annual indirect healthcare cost to cases with non-healing diabetic foot wounds.…”

“…Although the complexity of diabetes care is outside of the scope of this letter, data from this study showed that controls visited diabetes specialist clinic more frequently than cases. 3 It would be reasonable to proffer that this may be due to the lengthy or multiple in-patient stays for cases where they would be seen by the specialist on the ward. However, we could also explore the possibility that there was a subset of people who did not attend their specialist appointments and this absence contributed to uncontrolled diabetes and diabetic complications.…”

The costs of foot disease in diabetes in resource poor countries

“…William Jeffcoate 1 | Marion Kerr 2 1 Retired Diabetologist, Nottingham, UK 2 Insight Heath Economics, London, UK Greenidge and colleagues at the University of the West Indies have previously estimated the very considerable costs which are directly attributable to the management of foot disease in diabetes in the resource-poor setting of Barbados. 1 They have followed this in the present issue with an analysis of the associated indirect costs which fall on the people themselves and have estimated these to be more than US$2000 per ulcerated patient per year, mainly owing to reduced employment in people with foot ulceration (Ref required to DME-2022-00307).…”

Reduction in the prevalence of methicillin‐resistant Staphylococcus aureus in tissue and wound swab samples taken from outpatients attending a specialist diabetic foot clinic 2005–2021

“…3 In developing countries, the financial implications are even greater, with the direct impact of DFUs in Barbados conservatively estimated at 6% of government healthcare budget. 4 There is great diversity in the organisms causing infection in DFUs, including gram positive and negative aerobes as well as anaerobes in deeper seated infections. 5 A recent meta-analysis suggested that the most commonly isolated organism from infected DFUs was Staphylococcus aureus of which 18% were methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).…”