Evidence of meeting #123 for Health in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was insulin.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON
Can we educate the coming generation in the schools? Do you have any idea about that?
November 20th, 2018 / 10:15 a.m.
As an Individual
I taught school for years and what I did was—I was a diabetic in that classroom—I took care of the diabetic children sneakily, secretly. I had kids in my classroom that nobody else wanted because they were diabetic and I took care of them. That's probably so illegal nowadays, but I did it because I needed to do it.
We need to educate this new generation. There are more type 2 diabetics now than there were in my day. We're diagnosing 20-year-olds and 15-year-olds with type 2. We have to look at our food. It's a whole bunch of things.
One of the things I would love to see is a focus on nutrition. Look at juice boxes. Look at pop. There's just so much going on that it's just scary.
Liberal
As an Individual
There's nothing better than the Government of Canada for advertising. You guys are really good at it. You really are—and you have the cash, so personally, I'd say advertise. But find a way that you don't blame us for a disease that I didn't have anything to do with.
As an Individual
It's hard because it's not only advertising. You look at some of the TV shows that portray diabetes and half of them...it's just like, “Are you for real?”
As an Individual
They make jokes. I've had people in restaurants come up to me and they watch me take my insulin and they say, “You're having a piece of cake? How dare you. You're a diabetic.” You don't know this person. This is somebody you don't know. I am sorry, but I just look up at them and I say, “Well, that's why Dr. Best and Dr. Banting invented insulin.” There is a real stigma out there. With Banting and Best inventing it in this province, and we're this badly behind, I'm kind of embarrassed.
Liberal
Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON
You said that you have a hard time with insulin. I know that 830 diabetic patients die in Ontario every year because of a lack of access to insulin. If insulin were covered in a national pharmacare program, would this mean that no patient would die due to a lack of access to insulin?
Do you think this is the best idea?
As an Individual
It is if they don't make it too difficult. You have no idea what I do to get my insulin.
As an Individual
I go to one doctor and get a card. Then I go to another doctor and get another card. Then I go to another clinic. I have to do that every month and run around.
As an Individual
—as long as it was accessible. There are lots of programs around but they're impossible to get and use. They're not user-friendly.
Liberal
Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON
Prevention is the key. A lot of diabetic patients don't know they are diabetic. How can we reach out to them?
As an Individual
Education, I think. I think it's about educating Canadians, but don't forget people who are new here and not necessarily born and raised here. As I said, you have to reach everybody. You have to talk to everybody. You have to make it clear to them that it's not a bad thing and you can live with it. You can survive this.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I want to ask a question about this mobile thing we had here on the Hill that does screening for diabetes. At the time, it looked to me like it was a great way, especially for rural and remote communities, to screen children.
Could you each describe to me how they knew you had diabetes when you were young? What was the signal that you had it?
As an Individual
I remember that my teacher called my parents and basically—excuse my language—said I was being a pain in the ass and disrupting the class. One of the signs of diabetes with high blood sugar is frequent thirst and urination. Every five minutes I had to go to the bathroom. I would go and pee, stand for five minutes at the water fountain, then go back to class for a couple of minutes and say, “I have to go get a drink now; I'm thirsty,” and then I would do the exact same thing over and over again.
I was seven. I was well beyond being potty trained, and I started wetting the bed at night. I remember playing down in the basement with my sister, and I could not get up to the bathroom in time. Everyone just thought I had a urinary tract infection. I was very fortunate that the doctor tested me, because otherwise...I wasn't really sick; I was just drinking all the time and feeling a little blah and going to the bathroom.
That's my diagnosis story.
As an Individual
I was 18 and I was in Don Mills, I think. I had just got married and I think I went to the doctor to get the pill. The doctor did some blood work and he said, “Oh, you know what? Your blood sugar's really high. You must be diabetic.”
Then he sent me for—oh, you guys are going to love this. I did a jellybean test in those days. You ate 11 jellybeans and then they tested your blood sugar. Well, I don't want to be mean, but your blood sugar would be high after 11. Then he retested me, but his treatment plan was to lose 70 pounds, and I did it.
Diabetes Advocate, Diabetes Canada
I had planned a trip halfway around the world for a year, which I did take. There is diabetes in my family, but type 2, and so prior to going, my doctor wanted to do a test. She did the test and then she went on holidays, and the doctor who was filling in for her looked at my report. My blood sugar was 11. The normal range is between 4 and 6. She had the nurse call and tell me everything was fine.
So I went. I travelled for a year all through Southeast Asia, New Zealand, Australia, India, backpacking, but occasionally I wouldn't feel well. Then I was getting really sick, but in India a lot of people didn't feel too good anyway. I was thirsty, as she said, and I lost 30 pounds in 10 days. So I hopped on a plane and flew home, but I went into a coma on the airplane, a diabetic coma. The cells that produce insulin, the islet cells, were rapidly being destroyed, which I wasn't aware of. Actually, I was in the airport in Japan for two days because I was so ill they didn't want to put me on the flight. Finally they said they would take me. I lived in Vancouver and I went into a coma on the plane. They made an emergency landing in California, and got me off the plane. My blood sugar was 58 and they gave me six hours to live, because you just can't survive with high blood sugar like that.
Anyway, I made it, and that's how I found out that I had diabetes.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Wow, that's quite a story.
We definitely need to do a better job of screening because otherwise it's hit and miss, right?
The other thing I thought of with this mobile idea is the difficulty in getting a doctor, and a doctor that's experienced in diabetes, and getting the right devices. If you had a mobile doctor, the diabetes doctor, for a given area, who had all of the devices and was informed, it would be a great way of improving the service and getting that prevention in place, I think, in a good way.
Is there any comment on that?
