THERE was good news this week for children with diabetes and their parents, with the announcement that the post of children’s dietician for the diabetes unit in Limerick’s Regional Hospital is about to be advertised. However, the Limerick Post has learned that children who were being treated in Dublin have been sent back to Limerick before the support structures to treat them are put in place.
Diabetes Ireland says it is very concerned for children from Limerick, Clare and Tipperary who had been getting treatment in Dublin but who have been moved back to Limerick before the position of dietician is even advertised.
The post is vital to the ongoing treatment of young children with type 1 diabetes and will allow for the roll-out of insulin pumps, which in turn will save small children constant, painful injections.
The dietician will make it possible for parents to get the complicated instructions to use the pump which delivers a small dose of insulin subcutaneously through a tiny tube, doing away with the need for several injections a day into tiny limbs.
“We welcome the fact that the dietician will be appointed. That is a major breakthrough. But we are concerned that these children have been sent back to Limerick without the full supports in place to treat them. The diabetes unit in the Regional now has to cater for children with fully fledged diabetes, who are using insulin pumps without the necessary back-up services,” a spokesperson for Diabetes Ireland told the Limerick Post.
Diabetes Ireland has waged a long campaign to have children supplied with insulin pumps without having to travel five or six times a year to Dublin.
“Evidence suggests that the pumps offer a high level of insulin control in childhood, and children who have them are much less likely to develop serious problems by the age of thirty. These are vascular problems which can become very serious and necessitate amputations,” the spokesperson said.
HSE statistics show there were 781 diabetes related limb amputations in 2010 and 2011, an increase of 20 per cent on the previous two years.
When the dietician and a nurse support are in place, it will be possible to roll out the delivery of insulin pumps to children under the age of five in the next 12 moths, and for the following two years, other age groups up to young adults will be included.
