Free Diabetic Supplies

Canada has made headlines lately in the fight against diabetes.  They are taking the lead in developing innovative ways to monitor and control the disease.  One of the programs that they are working on is getting free insulin pumps to individuals that need them.  The pumps usually cost over $7,000 each.  The project is underway and is helping people throughout Ontario, which is the first place the project is being tested.

Another creative stride that Canada is making in dealing with diabetes is an idea whose time has come.  Ontario has announced that it will create an online registry for individuals with diabetes.  This registry will be created and maintained at a cost of $741 million, but will provide tremendous support to the over 600,000 Ontarians who have diabetes presently and the 300,000 more expected to be diagnosed within the next few years.

The registry will be maintained online and will allow individuals with diabetes to record their sugar levels on their own personal web page that only they and their doctor or nutritionist have access to.  If their levels spike or drop or in some way go out of control, there would be an alert sent to the doctor or nutritionist automatically so that the situation could be addressed and corrected immediately

This shifts the way diabetes is treated to a patient-doctor relationship rather than the other way around.  If an individual does not record their data, they will get an email to remind them to do so. 

This new registry is an idea that could save hospitalizations and other emergencies and save lives.  By determining irregularities in an individual’s sugar levels quickly, adjustments can be made well before the situation turns into an acute emergency.

It is time for other countries to think about implementing some sort of system that could help individuals with diabetes in a similar way.  In the short term and the long run, this would save hospitalizations, insurance claims and lives.