Jasmin Binoy’s daughter was diagnosed with Type One diabetes when she was one-and-a-half years old. It has been months since she registered with Mittayi, a project implemented by the State government through the Kerala Social Security Mission to provide care to children with Type 1 diabetes. But she’s yet to receive medicines through the project, and has to buy everything right from needles to glucometer strips from outside.
“In the year since her diagnosis, she has been admitted countless types owing to low blood sugar or hypoglycaemia. Look at the tip of her finger. It is full of pores owing to use of glucometer. Doctors say it is enough to measure sugar levels six or seven times a day. But with a child who keeps having low blood sugar, how is that enough. I’m forced to check it 15 times a day. We’ve had to shift near a hospital since she frequently needs medical attention. I can’t go to work and my husband works in a small hotel. We cannot afford a continuous glucose monitoring device, which keeps track of glucose levels every few minutes through a tiny sensor inserted under your skin. If we get one, then management of my daughter’s diabetes will be much easier since her sugar levels vary widely.”
Jasmin’s daughter is one of the hundreds of children diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in the State. As many as 1,250 children have registered with Mittayi, though there are nearly 2,000 such children, as per government estimates. The Type 1 Diabetic Welfare Society, Kerala, registered in Kozhikode, however believes the number is thrice that.
Disease with no cure
The upper income limit of ₹2 lakh is one condition that keeps away many children from Mittayi. However, Type 1 diabetes has no cure, the society points out. It can only be managed by controlling sugar levels using insulin, diet, and lifestyle. Once a child is diagnosed, they will have to live with it their entire life and the treatment costs remains a financial burden on their families. The government had been petitioned earlier to remove this upper income limit, say society office-bearers Vijeesh T.R. and Abdul Jaleel P.T.
Children with Type 1 diabetes do not get insurance coverage either. Each hospitalisation sets back the finances of a family. If not insulin pumps, then at least continuous glucose monitors should be provided twice a month instead of the existing once in three months, they say. The monitors will be especially helpful to school-going students and make night-time monitoring of sugar levels easier owing to the alert facility.
The society that has submitted a petition to the Minister also wants quicker membership approval for those who have registered with Mittayi, increase in strips and needles provided under the project, free lab tests, and the inclusion of such children in the category of differently abled children.
