Health committee  I'd like to mention that there are groups in Canada, particularly the aging, community and health research unit, led by nursing at McMaster University, which are leaders in the world in this area. They're doing a study right now in Ontario, Alberta, Quebec and P.E.I., to address

Health committee  May I add, actually, that Diabetes Action Canada has already launched a national diabetes repository. By the end of this calendar year, we will have 100,000 subjects with diabetes in our repository of data. These data are being derived from electronic medical records in primary c

Health committee  No. The indigenous communities are three to five times more likely to develop diabetes. To give you a sense of this problem related to complications, I mentioned there is an amputation every four hours in Ontario because of untreated diabetic foot ulcers. In the northern regions

Health committee  The foot ulcer is a biomarker of some of the most problematic complications of diabetes. It includes peripheral vascular disease and neuropathy, which is the effect of diabetes on nerves. It often is associated with poor glucose control, and emphasizes that when you identify some

Health committee  I'd like to start by indicating that the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission really must be addressed. In Diabetes Action Canada we have a large contingency of indigenous people who are engaged with our researchers. They have articulated that it's very cl

Health committee  May I just add one other comment?

Health committee  I am a recovering nephrologist. So for this issue of people with diabetes and early signs of kidney disease, their treatment is predominantly medication. It's treatment for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and specific treatment for diabetic kidney disease. Those drugs are

Health committee  We compare relatively poorly. I draw to your attention a very important assessment of value-based outcome measures that was published by the Economist Intelligence Unit in 2016. This indicates that one of the very important shortcomings of Canada, across the provinces, is the lac

Health committee  I think the lack of leadership is actually sitting with the provinces and the provincial ministries of health. As Mr. Lobb has said, this kind of issue needs to be prioritized politically. If we look around the world.... I take Sweden as an excellent model. Sweden is the size o

Health committee  Perhaps I could start. We know that the prevalence of diabetes and its complications really focuses on those populations with risk related to socio-economic factors. Again, I referred to the Public Health Agency of Canada's report this summer indicating that individuals who live

Health committee  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

Health committee  The first intervention that is required is really to identify those at highest risk, and that will require intervention at the community and primary care level, using methods that are simple. In other words, it will require, in any primary care practice, enabling a prevention pra

Health committee  From the perspective of Diabetes Action Canada, we are very much in favour of a national diabetes strategy that would begin to work with the provinces and territories on the standardization of early diagnosis of diabetes complications, on diabetes itself, type 2 diabetes, and on

Health committee  Ms. Sidhu is referring to a very important study funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, conducted in Ontario and a number of other provinces, looking at the highest risk individuals with diabetes, and demonstrating the importance of chiropody-led and nursing-led ca

Health committee  This is a critically important question for Canada. I draw to your attention a recent publication from the Public Health Agency of Canada. It was published this summer, so it was after our initial meeting and does not appear in the documents we have prepared. This is a document f