Diabetes initiatives gaining steam on government and stakeholder sides ByTESSIE SANCIOCTOBER 16, 2018 Diabetes Canada published this letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, asking his government to support the organization's newly developed strategy for diabetes awareness and prevention.captured with permission from Diabetes Canada You could say diabetes awareness is having a moment on the Hill. For one, the health committee continues to study diabetes strategies in Canada and abroad, an initiative that was proposed by Liberal MP and committee member, Sonia Sidhu (Brampton South, Ont.) in March 2017, and commenced this past spring. Also, Diabetes Canada has embarked on a campaign, beginning with an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) published last week, which asks his government to embrace the organization s $150-million proposal for a new strategy for diabetes awareness and prevention. That letter was a joint initiative from Diabetes Canada, Canadian Indigenous Nurses Association, Canadian Medical Association, Canadian Nurses Association and Canadian Society of Endocrinology and Metabolism.
And a device providing automatic insulin delivery in order to stabilize a diabetic s glucose levels was approved by Health Canada this month. The device, produced by Medtronic of Canada Ltd., is the first of its kind in Canada. Like other pumps, it is a small device worn on a patient s person to facilitate insulin delivery through a tube running under that individual s skin. While traditional pumps require the patient to program the amount of insulin to be delivered, Medtronic s MiniMed 670G s continuous glucose monitor (CGM) reads the patient s glucose levels, which are then sent to the pump so the pump can determine how to adjust insulin delivery accordingly, without patient intervention. Although no one can predict when Health Canada will approve a new medical treatment or device, there is a certain level of synchronicity in the diabetes space right now. Diabetes Canada launches new campaign Kimberley Hanson, director of federal affairs for Diabetes Canada, attributes the federal attention on the cause in part to her organization s focused efforts. We ve really been reminding the government quite regularly that diabetes is an epidemic that is raging very badly out of control and I think the numbers of how many people are affected by diabetes surprised even the government, Hanson said. The cost of diabetes to the public purse right now is $27 billion per year and it will climb to $40 billion within a decade if nothing is done, according to Hanson. She also noted the human cost, in which one person has a lower limb amputated every four hours because of diabetes. It starts to become inescapable that we have to do something differently, Hanson said. That something different comes in the form of Diabetes 360, which is the name of the organization s proposal for a Canadian diabetes strategy it wants the government to embrace. The strategy, developed with input from more than 100 stakeholder groups, had a soft launch in July in time for pre-federal budget submissions, but is taking center
stage in Diabetes Canada s current campaign, which encourages Canadians to go to the organization s website and provide residential info in order to generate an email showing their support that will be sent to their local MP. The strategy asks the federal government to invest $150 million in seven years to target areas including prevention, screening, treatment, improved outcomes and the prevalence of diabetes diagnoses in Indigenous communities, which experience diabetes three to five times more than non-indigenous Canadians. Among its recommendations, Diabetes Canada is calling for the creation of a registry to provide improved data on the occurence of diabetes in this country. This should be a starting point for implementation of Diabetes 360, according to Hanson. Right now, if you can believe it, there is not any system in Canada that lets us know, of all of the people that have been diagnosed with diabetes, do they have Type 1 or Type 2? she said. In order to really address this epidemic, we have to be able to understand the current burden of the disease, and then be able to understand the impact of different programs we might develop or interventions we might take to measure their impact on easing that burden. Diabetes Canada s campaign will include lobby days and a press conference on the Hill in early November. Sidhu prioritizes diabetes initiatives One very public backer of that strategy is Sidhu, who chairs the all-party diabetes caucus in addition to her role as a health committee member. She is also sponsoring Bill C-403, the Diabetes Awareness Month Act, which completed first reading in the House in May. Last year, she travelled across the country to consult Canadians and diabetes stakeholders on the issues to be tackled in order to reduce diabetes rates. Those consultations resulted in a report, outlining eight main findings including the problems of
food insecurity and victim-blaming when discussing how unhealthy choices can be a factor in a diabetes diagnosis. Sidhu s focus on the issue as a parliamentarian comes from an almost-two-decade career in health care before becoming a first-time MP in 2015. She used to be an educator and research coordinator at a diabetes clinic in Brampton, Ont., just northwest of Toronto. Her passion for the topic comes specifically from understanding the challenges faced by diabetes patients who used her clinic s services, she said. In addition, her riding is a hub for diabetes, with its significant South Asian population having a higher risk of being diagnosed with the chronic illness, Sidhu added. Automated insulin pump comes to Canada On the treatment side, Medtronic Canada has received permission to domestically market its automatic insulin pump for Type 1 diabetes patients. The device was submitted for review to the department in July and underwent an expedited process, allowing for its approval this month. The MiniMed 670G is designed to adjust the amount of insulin delivered to patients every five minutes based on glucose readings received by the patient s CGM. The insulin pump s list price is $7,200, while the CGM component starts at $800 and could go up to $5,000 per year, depending on the patient s usage, according to Deirdre Date, national reimbursement manager at Medtronic. Other costs connected to diabetes treatment include the insulin itself and blood glucose monitoring strips, Date said. The insulin pump is a generally accepted expense under public provincial and territorial insurance plans, though Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario are the only provinces
that don t have an age limit when covering those devices. For instance, Saskatchewan s program is available to Type 1 patients who are 25-years-old or younger, while Quebec s program is for those under the age of 18. However, the CGM component is only covered for those with private insurance plans. Medtronic is in the process of preparing listings with the information required by provincial insurance programs so the device can be included in those programs.