When conversations about medicine begin at the party table – of course there will be anger, contempt and reproaches, because medicines are expensive, e-health will hang and the lines of doctors are long. I have not lied, but this time I want to talk about the positive or significant changes in the support of type 1 diabetes patients. To be honest, we already live in the Happy Land compared to the situation in the USA, for example, but the ice has definitely moved there as well.
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I am not a doctor, and this will not be a professional opinion on the medical situation in the country. I am a patient.
I have been a type 1 diabetic for 11 years, so I know my fair share of living with diabetes, government support, costs, availability of doctors.
There are certainly not many of us, a little more than 5,000 people in Latvia. We make up only 5% of the entire group of diabetics, because most diabetics are suffering from type 2.
For a healthy person who has no friends with this disease, I will explain in a few words how these types differ without going into details. Type 2 diabetes is usually found in older people, in most cases it can be cured with different types of medications and lifestyle changes. Type 1 diabetes can be found in both infants, children and young people, and it has nothing to do with an unhealthy lifestyle, these people need to use insulin on a daily basis, because for various reasons their body does not produce it by itself. Insulin dissolves sugar in the blood. So every time I eat something, I have to inject insulin under my skin, until the end of my life or when medicine comes out with a loud announcement that all the answers have been found! Until then, I have to wait for a while, so I regularly measure my sugar and inject insulin.
Medicines should be taken several times a day, the sugar level should also be measured regularly, the question arises – how much does it all cost? Almost not enough.
The Latvian medical system can be criticized for many things, but here is praise and a real assessment of the fact that I, a chronically ill person, feel state support every month when I go to the pharmacy. Insulin would cost me about 200 euros a month, plus another 50 euros for special strips, which are small plastic “sticks” on which I put a drop of blood from my finger, then put it in the glucometer and it shows me how high my blood sugar level is.
Insulin is fully reimbursed by the state, I only paid 71 cents for it. I have to pay 25% of the price for strips, children and pregnant women don’t even have to do that. Living in Latvia, this kind of support for diabetes patients seems logical – if I have access to medication, I can control this disease, live a full life almost as a healthy person, and later also without occupying a bed in a hospital, fighting with diabetes complications, because we remember that everything bad is formed in a sugary environment – we diabetics are in the risk groups of almost all diseases.
But in fact such state support is a privilege,
because until a couple of years ago, people in several states of the USA could not buy insulin in the shadow of the monopoly of medical giants, so they simply did not use it and thus damaged their health for a long time. The prices were inflated inadequately high! Of course, the legislation differs in different parts of America, but people had to spend up to 1000 euros a month for insulin, which only a few can afford. Without insulin, not only the health in general deteriorates drastically, but also the feeling of well-being, working abilities – the whole quality of life. It should not be used only once a month or on the weekend or on payday.
This year has come with big changes, at the moment insulin prices have been drastically reduced in the US and price ceilings have also been set, which must not be exceeded. The largest manufacturers of insulin have reduced prices by as much as 75%. Big changes are also taking place in Latvia, since a couple of years now sensors have been available to children free of charge, which make it easier to measure sugar on a daily basis. It is a round plastic device that is attached to the hand, it contains a needle that measures the sugar level, and when you put the meter or even the phone (with the application of this sensor) you can see more accurate sugar measurements.
This is a much more convenient tool, especially for children, to monitor sugar levels in kindergarten and school.
It shows when the sugar rises sharply, when it falls, so predicting the next course of action to compensate for diabetes is much easier. Then, when you go to the endocrinologist, all the information about sugar fluctuations is stored on the phone in beautiful, transparent charts, and you no longer have to record anything by hand.
Currently, literally last week, the Latvian Diabetes Association met with the Ministry of Health and fought for such sensors to be paid for by a wider number of patients, including adults.
I have also used sensors myself, but they are not paid for in Latvia, as is the case in neighboring countries. One sensor that I use costs 50 euros and is valid for 2 weeks, which means that the sensor costs me 100 euros per month. It has to be sent from abroad, because we don’t have them in our pharmacy. If the Latvian Diabetes Association manages to achieve this, it will be a great, currently unimaginable benefit for diabetics!
Since the number of diabetics is growing rapidly every year and the patients are younger and younger, this is a topic that needs to be discussed, and although we only have around 5,000 type 1 patients in Latvia, it is at least 5,000 lives that such a decision of the Saeima changed beyond recognition! Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the finger prick can be replaced with a robot hand!
Have a great week, reader!
Krista Draveniec
Chief editor of LA.LV
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