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By Henry Uche
Troubled by rising burden of diabetes in the country, an innovative global healthcare company, SANOFI Nigeria, is calling on all stakeholders particularly the government across board to jointly put the right policies in place and increase funding as well as the access to health care for People Living with Diabetes (PLD).
The group made this call recently in Lagos as the world marks World Diabetes Day, with the theme: “Access to care,” and sub -theme- ‘Education to Protect Tomorrow.’
Speaking with newsmen at the press conference, the General Manager of SANOFI, Folake Odediran, expressed sadness over the scourge as it does not only affect the person but the economy of the country.
“Diabetes is a big concern to all and its economic impact is unfortunately glaring. Sanofi shall continue to support people living with diabetes. Our partnership with government and other stakeholders shall be strengthened, to ensure people living with diabetes live a quality life.”
Odediran advised affected persons to always visit their doctors and follow doctor’s advice prescriptions.
She also advocate that people living with diabetes should be involved in every decision, policies, plans and programs that affect them, saying, “You can’t help me without involving me.” Moreover she added, “I believe reimbursement for health, for medicine and care and the right facilities for these people.
“It is time to prioritise diabetes care in the overall health agenda and to reverse the epidemic. We need to increase awareness, strengthen primary healthcare, increase adequate skilled workers, ensure availability of data, subsidise the cost of care for vulnerable groups and make sure they have access to health insurance, these are ways the government can enable access diabetes care.
The health advocate averred that her organization was poised to pursue one purpose, “To chase the miracle of science to improve people’s live”, therefore would not leave any stone unturned to achieve its mandate.
“To every stakeholder, we can enable access to diabetes care by joining efforts with the government to raise awareness, stop stigmatisation, build capacity through continuous learning, support advocacy, invest in diabetes related Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) activities, sponsor research in diabetes donate to the course that advances diabetes care.
“For us, we believe a future where no one dies because of lack of access to diabetes care. We all can do our parts to reverse the diabetes epidemic. A future is possible where people living with diabetes in Nigeria can access diabetes care irrespective of their socio-economic status,” she added.
Similarly, the Medical Head for Sanofi, Dr. Joseph Muga, bemoaned over the possibility of diabetes becoming a thing of the past given the level of low support, inadequate facilities and lack of access to quality care for PLD.
He noted that as the burden of diabetes keeps increasing in the country and the world at large, it has been forecast that more people would be affected in the nearest future.
Quoting the report from the Intentional Diabetes Federation (IDF) ALAS for 2021, he revealed that close to 3.6mill Nigerians are already living with diabetes and the number is projected to increase progressively.
According to him, the report was based on people based within the ages of 20-75 years, therefore, urgent steps are needed to curb it before it surges. “I think we need more investment in health care, to increase access to care.”
