About 1,500 patients signed a petition sent to the Minister of Health • The signatories request: Add a device to the medicine basket that allows permanent control of blood sugar levels
The Link family.
"It will lead to a completely different life" // Photo: Michelle Dot Com
Following the publication in "Israel Today", about 1,500 diabetics and their families have signed an extraordinary petition calling for the introduction of the "artificial pancreas" device in the medicine basket, which allows permanent control of blood sugar levels.
The petition was sent to Health Minister Yuli Edelstein and the chairman of the Drug Basket Committee for 2021, Prof. Shuki Shemer, in which they warned that because of their illness they also "fight daily not to reach life-threatening stress levels, and are now one of the major risk groups. To be severely damaged by the corona virus. "
As revealed in October in "Israel Today", the Juvenile Diabetes Association warned the Ministry of Health at the time that patients "live with a particularly high risk because of our very high risk of complications and death from corona, so turn to treatment and drugs that can save lives and protect patients at increased risk." And especially in this year of the plague. "
However, the basket committee recently rated the device with a low score and asked for more information from the doctors about the patients who need it.
Following this, the new petition was written a week ago.
The innovative and expensive device known as the "artificial pancreas", from the medical technology company Medtronic (and in its official name Minimed 780), is connected to the patient's body and performs a constant and constant 24/7 continuous independent blood sugar level sensor.
According to the test results, it causes the body to automatically and regularly inject insulin through a pump.
The state needs help
Dorit Moshkovitz from Raanana, Shahar's mother, 15, who was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes about two years ago, is one of the initiators of the patients' petition.
She said, "I have decided that I can no longer afford to sit still, and we have no choice. We cannot win the war over the balance of our son's sugar without the use of appropriate technology.
"I know that today there is a system that can give my son the opportunity to live an almost normative life, a system that will learn his lifestyle and regulate and inject insulin automatically accordingly, thus keeping him balanced around the clock. Balance is critical, both in terms of long-term disease risks "Both in terms of the risks and its long-term complications, in addition to the emotional consequences of the disease, which also require long-term treatment. He is still a child, and the use of the appropriate technology has a far-reaching effect on him for the rest of his life."
"Today my son uses a pump, but still suffers from hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia, and still has to constantly measure his sugar level and be under constant supervision and alertness. You can never take a break from it and relax. Treating it includes getting up every night, which also affects daily functioning." Of the whole family.During the day he is nervous and tired, and I too go around for almost two years as a kind of sleepwalking due to getting up at night.The state must understand that this system for children like my son will allow them to live a normative life, experience childhood as it should be and then become contributing adults and adults To the company and do not constitute a burden on it. "
Existential anxiety
Nitzan Link from Nahariya, Yoav's mother, 14, who was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes, also signed the petition.
According to her, since the discovery of the disease in her son, "My life, his and the whole family's has changed from end to end. Dealing with the disease is 24 hours, seven days a week, while the child grows and his agenda changes accordingly and so does the almost impossible difficulty balancing sugar levels. His.
"There are better times and there are times when he experiences frequent ups and downs. About two years ago he even came to the intensive care unit and luckily we got there on time. As a mother of a diabetic boy, my fear for his life is existential anxiety. We live the disease with him, adapt to his limitations and need Supervise him even in places where he knows how to manage on his own. The new system for us can be breathable. It is the dream to give our child the opportunity to live as normal a life as possible.
"It's a system that can free me as a mother from the endless stress of supervising the child, knowing that there is someone who takes care of him all the time, and will allow me to go back to sleep at night quietly. For my son this is a system that can allow him to grow up as a normal child. It's much more spontaneous the way children his age behave. "
According to Nitzan, "Now during the corona we drive very carefully and very big, and with the spread of the plague we closed in the house and to this day we are very careful. For example, Yoav meets with friends only in open spaces and we do not host indoors, taking the instructions a few steps further. We are still very protected and very afraid of the virus. "
Yoav Link, an eighth-grade student, told Israel Today: "The new system will keep me in a stable state. Today there are cases where the sugar level is low in the middle of the night, and it sometimes disrupts the rest of the night and the day after that makes life difficult. I hope life will be "Less worrying and releasing a lot of stress, which is constantly present in any situation where you have to be constantly prepared for any change in sugar level, even during rehearsals with my band. I can also eat spontaneously and it will lead to a completely different life, more like a normal life."
Intensive discussions
The basket committee said in response to the patients' petition: "About 880 drugs and technologies were submitted to the committee this year with a total cost of more than NIS 3 billion. To submit its recommendations to the government towards January 2021. "