The Sunday News
Mollet Ndebele, Sunday News Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Diabetes Association (ZDA) is appealing to the Government to provide free medication to diabetes patients as a majority of them cannot afford the cost of drugs, forcing them to default and succumb to the disease.
The association’s Bulawayo Chapter chairperson, Mrs Violet Moyo, said they were asking the Government to intervene and provide free treatment because most of them could no longer afford the high cost of medication.
“We call upon Government to provide assistance because this is a chronic condition and defaulting on medication causes serious harm that might even cause death. Just like HIV patients we feel like we also deserve free medication. Some patients skip medication as a way of saving the drugs so that they last for a longer period of time and this causes many complications like severe nerve damage resulting in extreme pain. In serious cases it causes progressive and unstoppable blindness, kidney failure, organ failure due to nerve damage, possible coma and death if your pancreas actually stops producing insulin due to being overworked, heart attack, stroke, heart disease, liver failure, high blood pressure or rather death due to accumulated complications,” said Mrs Moyo.
Mrs Moyo said they were also appealing to donors who could supply the association with insulin as it was usually out of stock in most Government hospitals.
“As an association we have more than 700 members and about 450 are affected. There are young people who are affected by diabetes and have to inject themselves everyday which is a challenge considering the cost of insulin. The ministry is currently providing free medication for patients who are below the age of five and those above 65 years, hence we are pleading with the Government to also provide for all age groups including the middle aged as they are also affected by the cost of drugs,” said Mrs Moyo.
Earlier this year, the association signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Novartis, a Swiss pharmaceutical company, which was expected to see the company providing quality and affordable health services for non-communicable diseases but nothing has materialised up to now.
“We have been waiting for the medication but nothing has been coming forth amid revelations that people are dying while others are suffering heart attacks as a result of skipping doses to save medication. Skipping doses has a danger of having unmanaged glucose levels hence the rise of complications,” said Mr Simion Jamanda the association’s administrator.
The country has more than 100 000 people suffering from diabetes.
