World Diabetes Day to promote patients' rights
By Stevie Emilia
JAKARTA (JP): The country's once blooming economy turned out sour: higher incomes have led to unhealthy diets and a sedentary lifestyle that cause the incurable but treatable disease, diabetes.
According to World Health Organization (WHO) data, around five million Indonesians, mostly between 35 and 50 years old, are suffering from diabetes.
WHO's latest study projects that the number will rise to 12 million in 2025, putting Indonesia among the top 10 countries with diabetes cases worldwide.
The other nine countries are India, China, the U.S., the Russian Federation, Japan, Brazil, Pakistan, Mexico and Ukraine.
Yet, not many people here know much about diabetes and its complications due to the lack of campaigns about it.
Diabetes is a chronic disease caused by inherited and/or acquired deficiency in production of insulin by the pancreas, or by ineffectiveness of the insulin produced.
Complications include diabetic retinopathy, renal failure, heart disease, diabetic neuropathy and foot ulceration and amputation.
A few institutions, including WHO, pay attention to the need to prevent the disease and its complications by observing Nov. 14 as World Diabetes Day.
"There's not much awareness about diabetes yet, not only here in Indonesia but also in other countries, and we will try to improve that awareness a bit more," WHO's representative to Indonesia, Robert J. Kim-Farley, told The Jakarta Post in his office.
The World Diabetes Day was first celebrated in 1991 following serious concern over the rising incidence of diabetes cases worldwide and Nov. 14 was chosen because it was the birthday of Frederick Banting, who discovered insulin.
This year, the theme for World Diabetes Days is Diabetes and Human Rights, which is chosen to mark the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The theme serves as a means to remind people about the rights of diabetes patients.
"We are mixing the two together. The reason is to try to bring out the issues of medical health care, social discrimination toward those with diabetes and the inaccessibility of insulin," Kim-Farley said.
He said that diabetes sufferers have the right to get diagnoses, proper treatments -- such as blood sugar level testing to determine blood glucose condition and insulin to regulate sugar levels -- and also advice on diet and exercise to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
They also have the rights to be monitored to avoid the onset of complications, such as kidney disease, blindness or amputation and the rights to be informed on the latest medical advances and to education, he added.
"There's a need of education to emphasize that it's a lot more expensive to treat someone than it is to provide medicine to make sure that these complications are minimized," Kim-Farley said.
At present, medical knowledge only provides the means to control the sugar level of diabetes patients, while the mortality rate of those with diabetes is twice that of non-sufferers.
Unfortunately, the lack of information and knowledge about the disease make many diabetes patients here discover their condition belatedly, when they have already developed complications.
Kim-Farley said that diabetes patients also have the rights to get other people's understanding so as to avoid discrimination.
"Diabetes is a disease that can be controlled. People have to understand that this is not a disease that is untreatable. Diabetes is not a disease that going to be caught by somebody else, it's a non-communicable disease. And people with diabetes can be very productive and healthy with treatment," he said.
Sadly, in many parts of the world, people with diabetes continue to suffer from inadequate health care and are not offered the same opportunities to learn about the proper treatment of this serious condition, he said.
For instance, those seeking employment frequently found themselves discriminated against but did not always have an attentive audience to which they can turn for help.
With the present economic crisis here in Indonesia, there would be more concern about diabetes and human rights, he said.
"I think that access to health care will become more problematic because of the crisis. The problem is if you don't have the access to health care, diabetes will lead to a number of complications," said Kim-Farley, referring to limited and even worse health access in remote areas here.
First of all, he said, there would complications for those who dependent upon insulin.
"They need insulin for their own survival. If they don't have insulin, they die. For those who are not dependent upon insulin and don't have proper control of their blood sugar level, there are many complications due to the disease," Kim-Farley said.