Posted at 11:00 a.m.
Mr. Sasseville, first of all, congratulations on your remarkable performance! Being a type 1 diabetic (T1D) myself, I can only tip my hat to you knowing all that it took you to get there.
You mention that to be happy, we need insulin and love. Yes of course ! However, it seems important to me to prosaically add the elements that are missing from our well-being.
Speaking to everyone and especially the government, here is what we need and our obligations throughout our life with this disease: insulin (of course), blood glucose meter, lancing device, test strips (reading of blood sugar), reactive strips (ketone reading), insulin pen or insulin pump, alcohol swabs, self-adhesive swabs, catheters and their tubing, reservoirs, continuous blood sugar reading sensors, transmitter to transmit the reading to our cell phone (so a cell phone, of course), glucagon, syringes, sugar, etc.
We must also:
- monitor blood glucose every hour, every day, every evening, every night, and adjust our insulin doses accordingly;
- take blood tests every four months, before meeting with our attending physician for follow-up;
- meet annually with an ophthalmologist to screen for possible eye lesions.
That’s when everything is going well and we are lucky enough not to experience disabling health problems caused by blood sugar levels that deviate from the norm over the years.
You should know that diabetics are more at risk of almost everything: coronary heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, retinopathy, neuropathy, kidney failure, musculoskeletal problems, depression, suicide, etc.
And finally, we must have lots and lots of money to take good care of this condition.
Money, the sinews of war
To give you an idea, an insulin pump costs $10,000 for a four-year lifespan. And all the hardware we need (listed above) costs between $300 and $500 monthly.
Thousands of dollars a year, just to live and breathe with the people we love. Only a minority of us are fortunate enough to have private insurance coverage.
The Quebec health system covers part of the cost of diabetic equipment through the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec. However, regarding the insulin pump, it is only reimbursed for diabetics under the age of 18. I therefore have no right to it.
I can’t explain this difference in treatment any other way than by discrimination on the basis of age. It is very regrettable!
Knowing that :
- British Columbia covers the cost of insulin pumps for all diabetics (I can’t say that here, but I think other provinces do too);
- the National Institute for Excellence in Health and Social Services recently recommended insulin pump coverage, regardless of age;
- Supported by health professionals specializing in the treatment of diabetes, the diabetic community has been asking for it for too long, what are we still waiting for?
It is very sad that this condition is publicized because of the death of Karim Ouellet.
Knowing several people living with this disease and being a member of associations that allow us to exchange, I can tell you without embarrassment that we are not looking for pity, quite the contrary! We are combative people and love life; you have to be to absorb the mental load that this condition requires over the days with a smile, believe me!
All we want is fair treatment from the government.