Samantha Donovan: More than a million Australians living with diabetes can’t access a subsidy for a life-saving device that monitors sugar levels. They’re known as continuous glucose monitors and they attach to a person’s arm to provide real-time, 24-7 data via a smartphone app. But right now they’re only subsidised for people with type 1 diabetes. Those with type 2 have to pay thousands of dollars for the monitor. A parliamentary inquiry into diabetes will table its report tomorrow and it’s likely to recommend wider access to the devices for those who need them most. Nabil Al-Nashar reports.
Nabil Al-Nashar : Edwina Murphy has lived with type 2 diabetes since she was a child.
Edwina Murphy: My experience to this was being in and out of hospital for years.
Nabil Al-Nashar : Like many people with diabetes, the 22-year-old from the Northern Territory used a finger-pricking device two to three times a day to measure her blood sugar. But about a year ago, she switched to using a continuous glucose monitor, or CGM, that gives her real-time information about her sugar levels, delivered through a phone app.
Edwina Murphy: Yeah, it makes me feel like I’m much more connected to my body.
Nabil Al-Nashar : A CGM device lasts for about 14 days. Professor Glen Maberlyis from the University of Sydney’s School of Public Health.
Prof Glen Maberly: I think it’s a bit like night and day, where using a CGM is a day that reveals everything. If you are pricking your finger occasionally, you get a glimpse of what’s happening. But with a CGM, you open the curtain up as if it’s a full day and you can see exactly what’s happening in real time.
Nabil Al-Nashar : CGMs are expensive. They can cost anywhere between $3,000 and $5,000 a year. And that figure rises to $8,000 if the person needs an insulin pump. Right now in Australia, CGM sensors are only subsidized for people who have type 1 diabetes. But type 2 diabetes represents more than 85% of all diabetes cases in Australia, which is nearly 1.3 million people. Professor Glen Maberlyagain.
Prof Glen Maberly: Diabetes is actually our biggest burden of disease. Diabetes is very expensive. We figured out that in Western Sydney, it costs about $18,000 a year in terms of the total costs for someone with type 2 diabetes. So if we can add a CGM, which costs about $100 every two weeks, we can begin to reduce the burden and we will reduce the burden on the hospital system. So a little bit of investment and the prevention can actually improve the situation for the government. But it always requires an investment.
Nabil Al-Nashar : Angela Titmuss is the only pediatric endocrinologist in the Northern Territory. Many of her young patients have type 2 diabetes and to get a CGM, they need to get compassionate access from the companies that manufacture the devices.
Angela Titmuss: We need to apply for every young person individually to be able to have compassionate access. And that would usually only give them one to two months of supply. But the young people that do use it, they find it’s really helpful in understanding diabetes, understanding the effect of food and medications on their sugar levels.
Nabil Al-Nashar : For the last year, Federal Labor Member of Parliament Dr Mike Freelander has chaired an inquiry looking into diabetes and how it’s managed in Australia. He’s received submissions from hundreds of experts and people with lived experience of CGMs from across the country.
Dr Mike Freelander: The messaging we’re hearing is that this diabetes issues, and we looked at both type 1, type 2 and other forms of diabetes, are putting enormous pressure on the health system, that the costs of managing this are huge, that the only real answer is to look at prevention because that is what’s going to reduce the burden on our health system and on our society.
Nabil Al-Nashar : Dr Freelander says it’s hard to know exactly how much diabetes costs the Australian health system each year.
Dr Mike Freelander: Exactly what burden it is putting on the health system. I can’t give you an accurate figure, but it’s in the many billions of dollars, literally. I think if we do open up the CGM technology to everyone with type 2 diabetes, it would be cost prohibitive in the short term, looking at probably over a billion dollars. But there are ways of modifying that by using intermittent access or subsidising in other ways.
Nabil Al-Nashar : The year-long federal parliamentary inquiry into diabetes is set to table its report tomorrow.
Samantha Donovan: Nabil Al-Nashar reporting.