New Zealand diabetics are about to have their choices in blood sugar meters severely restricted by Pharmac. They want to save $10 million by removing most of the popular meters from the schedule of funded meters. Even worse - they are also going to remove funding for test strips!
Read an article about it here:
What you can do to help:
- write or email Diabetes New Zealand, so they can take our submissions to Pharmac. Their homepage currently lists two Pharmac documents which are out for consultation. Submissions close 14 March 2012.
And here is my email I've just this minute sent to Diabetes New Zealand:
I do not support Pharmac's proposal to severely restrict my choice of blood sugar meter.
I have been a diabetic for 24 years now, and I have good control of my condition. I will share with you my latest HbA1c result: 43mmol/mol (6.0%). A large part of this good control I would chalk up to the great team of support people and family I have around me. But also in the way I have been encouraged to take control of my condition. To exercise my own choices. To experiment with my treatment regimen until I found a solution that would work for me.
Diabetes is a very personal condition and everyone is unique in the way they manage it. But suggesting that it is good for patients to have choice taken away from them is unacceptable. A large part of learning to control diabetes is taking ownership of it and managing it carefully. I test my blood sugar between 10 and 14 times per day, and I need to know that I will be happy with the medical equipment I have to use. I do not want to be forced into feeling miserable because I am stuck with a poorly designed blood sugar meter. I want to know that if a particular meter is unsuitable for me, that I have options and can try another one.
Personally I use the Optium Xceed, a meter that is small, lightweight, cheap ($20 at pharmacy retail - easy to get a replacement quickly), and it has a back-light which is important for night time testing. I also like the way the test strips are packaged individually in foil - it means I don't have to cart a full tub of 50 strips with me everywhere. These choices are right for me and the way I manage my condition now, but they may not be suitable for another diabetic individual. (For instance, those individuals in New Zealand who are fortunate enough to get an insulin pump will, I imagine, be upset at the lack of a funded meter to test ketones in the blood.) It may seem like a small difference to you - I mean how different can these blood sugar meters be? - but when you use one as often as I do, all the little details of the device get magnified a hundred-fold. If it's too big for your hand, if it's difficult to operate, if the buttons are too slippery... And meter-features that are great for one person will be just plain wrong for another person.
WE NEED CHOICE
Please do not take our choice away.
At the very least, consider meeting me halfway: you could fully fund 1 type of meter (preferably one that has greatest usage by diabetics in NZ to cause the least agony in making the switch), make other meters on the current list available but unfunded, and continue to fully fund all test strips on the current list.
Two final things to note: I would like to question why a more modern, innovative blood sugar meter has not been chosen? There are several available overseas now that I would dearly love to try, but because the test strips are not funded I can't. And secondly - why is there nowhere in these proposals an effort to look at funding CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitoring) systems?
So what do you think? Is what Pharmac wants to do fair? Are we diabetics being given the short end of the stick? Will you write to Pharmac or your MP about this?
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