This article is from page 3 of the 2012-06-12 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 3 JPG
CHILDREN from Clare with diabetes are putting up with “dire” conditions as they try to manage their condition.
One of the leading experts in type one diabetes in the country, Dr Anna Clarke is now appealing to parents from the county and across the midwest to begin a letter campaign calling on the CEO of the Mid Western Hospital Group, Ann Doherty, to implement some promised measures that would alleviate the situation.
Parents of the estimated 3, 500 children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes, including an estimated 250 from Clare, lobbied politicians last year, calling for diabetes services to be restructured on a virtually cost-neutral basis.
In response, the HSE made commitments to address the inequity, inconsistency and general difficulty in accessing advanced therapies like insulin pumps outside of Dublin.
“The HSE promised to address this imbalance and build capacity for insulin pump therapy in Cork, Limerick and Galway. I am very concerned at the slow progress being made five months after the announcement,” added Professor Hilary Hoey, Chair of Diabetes Ireland.
“The situation in the Paediatric Diabetes clinic in Limerick is pretty dire,” according to Gráinne Flynn, Secretary of the Clare branch of Diabetes Ireland.
“Every child should have immediate access to a diabetes nurse specialist and a dietician on diagnosis but, in some cases, the waiting list for a child with type one diabetes to see a dietician can be up to one year,” she said.
“Another example of the lack of resources in Limerick would be if a parent telephones the clinic looking for some guidance on how to manage diabetes with a sick child, the parent is forwarded to an answering machine which may not be checked until late afternoon. By this time, the family could be highly distressed. On the other hand, if this child is an outpatient of a Dublin hospital, the parent would be put through to a live person.”
Diabetes Ireland is calling on the HSE to put in place promised nursing and dietician support to make the treatment available to children and adolescents with diabetes at Cork University Hospital, the MidWest Hospital Limerick and Galway University Hospital.