As the world celebrates Diabetes Day, patients suffering from the disease in Nigeria have called on the federal government to subsidise or make the treatment free in public hospitals.
They also decried the rising cost of medications in managing the disease.
This was their submission at the opening ceremony of the 2019 Triennial Delegates Conference and World Diabetes Day Celebration organised by the Diabetes Association of Nigeria, in Abeokuta, on Wednesday.
The association said about five to nine million people are living with diabetes in the country, saying that the disease had become a major global epidemic being the leading Non- Communicable Disease, NCD, and responsible for over 105 million deaths annually.
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While delivering a lecture titled, “Improving Diabetes Care In Nigeria: Useful Strategies”, Prof. Olufemi Fasanmade, observed that diabetes treatment in Nigeria is a huge financial burden, not only on the patients but also on their family members.
According to him, a diabetes patient in Nigeria spends 66 per cent of his income on treatment, which is not the case in other advanced countries of the world like the United Kingdom where a patient only spends 10 per cent.
He said Nigerians spent N92 billion in treating diabetes in 2017 and called on the government to make the treatment of diabetes-free like that of HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis.
Fasanmade bemoaned the low budget allocation for the health sector, insisting that the budget for health is too low to address the various health challenges confronting the nation.
He urged Nigerians to keep a healthy lifestyle and avoid habits such as smoking, alcohol and bad eating habits which could promote diabetes.
Fasanmade also urged the Federal and State governments to revitalise the Health Insurance Scheme to capture more Nigerians, who cannot afford expensive healthcare services, stressing that all Nigerians should have health insurance to improve the funding of health sector.
The National President of DAN, Dr Mohammed Alkali, in his welcome address, stated that diabetes had become a major global epidemic among Non-Communicable Diseases, disclosing that between 5-9million Nigerians have the disease with over half of them not aware they have the disease.
”It is not an exaggeration to say that almost everyone in Nigeria has a relation or friend that is diabetic and might have lost one. This is only going to be worse unless we enlighten the public and we do massive screening for them to prevent the epidemic from engulfing the world,” he added.
He advised Nigerians to seek medical advice on how to live healthily and always screen themselves to know if they have the disease, saying, with proper health care, over 50 per cent of diabetes cases would be prevented.
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