April 10, 2019
Diabetes Canada commends the all-party federal Standing Committee on Health for its recommendation today that a national diabetes strategy – Diabetes 360° – be implemented. The Committee’s report, “A Diabetes Strategy for Canada,” which was released today, is the product of a study into diabetes strategies in Canada and abroad undertaken between May and November 2018.
“We share the Committee’s view that implementing the evidence-based, community-developed Diabetes 3600 strategy will reduce the human burden of this rapidly escalating epidemic, as well as the unsustainable demand on the health care system,” says Dr. Jan Hux, President and CEO of Diabetes Canada, “which is why we urge the government to take definitive steps towards its implementation right away. Every day we wait, the burden on Canadians grows larger.”
Diabetes 360° is a nation-wide strategy developed by the broad diabetes community in Canada to improve the prevention, screening and treatment of diabetes. It recommends the establishment of a Taskforce to work with all levels of government, non-government organizations and the private sector across Canada to implement the Diabetes 360° strategy. In just 10 years the Diabetes 360° strategy will help prevent more than one million cases of type 2 diabetes and save Canada’s health-care system and economy more than $36 billion.
“Diabetes Canada echoes the Committee’s recommendation that the Diabetes 360° partnership should facilitate the creation of Indigenous-specific strategic approaches led and owned by any Indigenous groups wishing to embrace this framework. We further commend the Committee on its recommendations in this report related to research, access to medications and medical care and to support programs like the Disability Tax Credit, all of which the Diabetes 360° strategy, when implemented, will help to ensure,” says Dr. Hux.
Diabetes Canada wishes to extend its sincere thanks to all Committee members for their diligent attention to this issue, in particular, Sonia Sidhu, MP for Brampton South and Chair of the All-Party Diabetes Caucus, who initiated this study.
We gratefully acknowledge the tremendous contributions of the 120 stakeholders – members of academia, non-governmental and patient advocacy organizations, as well as, the private sector – who helped to shape the Diabetes 360° strategy and of the nearly 4,000 Canadians who wrote to their Members of Parliament in support of it, and the many Parliamentarians – including the Diabetes and Juvenile Diabetes Caucuses – who spoke up on behalf of it.
“We call upon the government to respond to the Committee’s recommendations and the call of the entire diabetes community in Canada and implement Diabetes 360° as soon as possible to stop this escalating disease,” says Dr. Hux.
About Diabetes
Diabetes is a chronic disease in which the body either cannot produce insulin or cannot properly use the insulin it produces. Insulin is a hormone that controls the amount of glucose (sugar) in the blood. Diabetes leads to high blood sugar levels, which can damage organs, blood vessels and nerves. The body needs insulin to use sugar as an energy source.