Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Oct 4: Please provide free insulin to juvenile diabetic patients belonging to an economically weak background, was an appeal made today by Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh to doctors.
Pitching for approximately 75,000 juvenile diabetic patients, Dr Singh, a practising doctor himself, said a high rate of death among such children was mainly due to inability of their parents to afford insulin for their lifelong treatment.
Taking a leaf out from his professional history, he said ever since 1996, he made it a rule to provide free insulin to every destitute diabetic child who was insulin- dependent.
Till date, there are dozens of such children who have received free insulin from him, some of whom have since grown up, married and are now employed, he was quoted by an official release as having said at his inaugural address at the Afro-Asian conclave on diabetes in children organised by Denmark-based Novo Nordisk Education Foundation.
Dr Singh appealed to all the medical practitioners to adopt this approach of distributing free insulin to destitute diabetic children.
Holding charges of Minister of State in Prime Minister’s Office and Ministries of Personnel and Earth Sciences, Dr Singh said there is some times a tendency to ignore the fact that there are over 75,000 children with Type-1 juvenile diabetes in India who require lifelong insulin for survival.
In Type 1 diabetes, which is usually diagnosed in children and young adults, the body does not produce insulin.
Referring to the Changing Diabetes in Children (CDiC) programme, which was dedicated to the country by former President APJ Abdul Kalam, he said that to strive for the care of economically-deprived diabetic children was a way to serve the nation through the medical profession.
Emphasising on the means of self-management for better outcomes in diabetic care among children, the Minister said that awareness programmes for children ought to be innovative, child-friendly and capable of capturing the interest of the young and adolescent minds.
Even as insulin injection is the only viable option available for survival of such children today, Singh hoped that very soon there would be a viable oral insulin option also available.
Prominent among those present on the occasion were Dr. P.V. Rao, Professor and Head of Diabetes, Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS), Hyderabad, Dr. K.M. Prasanna Kumar, HoD Endocrinology from Bengaluru, Prof. Kishwar Azad from Bangladesh, Dr. Tashi Wangdi from Bhutan, Dr. Paul Laigong from Kenya, Dr. Mesmin Dehayem from Tanzania and Dr. Nikhil Tandon from New Delhi.
Follow our WhatsApp channel