Paula Carr was born in Ashford on 5June 1975. Her young life was spent in Willesborough where she went to school. Paula was diagnosed diabetic in 1984 at the age of nine. She learned to cope with insulin injections and to balance her blood sugar levels.
However, Paula sadly died as a result of a hypoglycaemic episode whilst she slept on 18 April 1988. She was two months short of her thirteenth birthday. The Paula Carr Trust was set up in her memory on 12 May 1989, with the aim of relieving diabetes in Kent.
Her family’s response to the request to use Paula’s name was brave and unselfish and they have helped and supported the Trust since the beginning.
The first project the Trust was able to achieve was building and equipping the Paula Carr Diabetes Care Centre in Ashford, which was opened by HRH, the Princess of Wales on 21 October 1992.
The concept behind building a diabetes care centre was the need to provide a focus for diabetic care, treatment, screening and effective health education.
A diabetes care centre in Maidstone was also needed and so funds were raised and this centre was opened in December 2000.
The provision of both diabetes care centres have made it possible for a dedicated team of healthcare professionals to provide the kind of integrated service diabetics deserve.
Another prime objective of the Trust is to help prevent blindness, which can be associated with diabetes.
In 1994 we purchased one van and one camera and set up the Kent Retinal Screening Service. This was a new initiative that reached into the community, helping the outlying districts where diabetics had no access to regular eye screening. In the first year we screened 2,500 patients. Now, fourteen years later, we have expanded the service to screening 45,000 diabetic patients at 280 surgeries across Kent from eight mobile units.
In 2003 we raised the sum of £700,000 with our Save Sight Appeal. This has allowed us to:
- build and equip the new Kent Eye Screening Centre, which provides fully equipped, integrated facilities dedicated to the screening, diagnosis and treatment of diabetic eye disease
- provide a facility for training retinal photographers, diabetic retinopathy screeners, graders and optometrists.
The Paula Carr Trust is dedicated to helping people with diabetes in Kent. The total sum spent by the Trust on the relief of diabetes over the past 18 years is in excess of £3,000,000. Donations are vital to enable the Trust to maintain momentum in bringing about improvements in diabetes care in Kent.
