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11th May 2020
11:28am BST
Irish Coeliac Society CEO Gill Brennan says that the new alert system will bring relief to patients who have been unsure of their status for years.
"We have been working to raise awareness of coeliac disease amongst GPs, however, they are an exceedingly difficult group to target due to their geographical spread and heavy workload," he said.
"The Coeliac Alert could be a game changer – enabling us to communicate with half of all practitioners in the country and help them ‘Think Coeliac’ when patients present with certain indicator conditions.
"This is a phenomenal step forward considering that 74 percent of all coeliac sufferers are currently undiagnosed.”
People living with undiagnosed coeliac disease are at risk of early-onset osteoporosis, infertility, growth failure in children, and bowel cancer.
The illness has no cure though switching to a gluten free diet is actively encouraged.
Dr Helena Stokes, retired GP and coeliac patient, says that the new system has the potential to help thousands of people.
“GPs have a very heavy workload, which covers a wide spectrum of conditions," she says.
"The activation of the alert, when a patient presents with symptoms common to Coeliac Disease, would, in my opinion, enable many more people to be diagnosed with Coeliac Disease.
"This would confer a health benefit to potentially thousands of patients."Explore more on these topics:
