That's correct. Thank you for looking at our website, Diabetes Action Canada.
The cost that has been quoted is a combination of direct and indirect costs. Direct costs refer to hospital, physician and other remunerated costs related to provinces and territories, but the indirect costs are the costs to patients and their families, societal costs. Both of these costs are rising.
The reason is that both the prevalence of diabetes and its complications are rising in a population that has increased risk for diabetes, both type 1 and type 2, in Canada. This constitutes a major epidemic, I would say, of disease in Canada. Unless we intervene in Canada and unless we intervene to provide more timely diagnosis and treatment of diabetes and its complications, those costs will continue to rise.