Yesterday an article was published across Australia detailing a new report showing that Australians with diabetes are missing out on the recommended levels of diabetes care. Most of these people receive their diabetes care in general practise.

A couple of things before I go on:

  1. The article was behind a paywall, but Diabetes Australia shared an image of a portion of the it, and that can be accessed here. If you have access to a News Ltd. account, you can read the article here.)
  2. I want to say that in writing this post today I do not want to be seen to be doctor-bashing. I don’t believe that is constructive in any way whatsoever. However, I do think that there needs to be acknowledgement that the level of diabetes care in general practise is not ideal for a lot of people.
  3. The language of the article was atrocious. It appeared first under the heading ‘How diabetes sufferers are dicing with death’ Seriously, journos, ready the freaking Diabetes Australia Language Position Statement.

Onwards…

There was some discussion online after the article was shared, with a few doctors believing the article wasn’t all that helpful and feeling that it was unfairly unfavourable towards GPs. Someone also commented on the language used. (I’m not sure if they meant on Twitter or in the article. The language in the article was strong and very critical of GPs.)

The report is damning, and it shows that the results for people with diabetes are not good at all with only one in three people diagnosed with diabetes receiving expected standards of diabetes care. Only half had their A1c checked, and of those, only half again were in range.

This is despite there being a documented diabetes annual cycle of care (for which GPs receive funding). If completed fully, the annual cycle of care includes: annual A1c, cholesterol, and kidney checks, weight and blood pressure checks, as well as two-yearly eye and foot checks.

For me, it shows yet again how stacked the decks are against so many people with diabetes. We don’t receive the level of care recommended and then, when we don’t meet expected outcomes, or develop diabetes-related complications, we get blamed.

If we want to talk about things that are unhelpful and not constructive, let’s begin with that.

We seem to forget that most people don’t innately know what is required to manage diabetes, or what screening checks are required – especially people newly diagnosed with the condition. A lot of people rely on their healthcare professional – in the case of diabetes, usually their GP – for this.

I’ve written before that in my case, my GP is not in any way involved in my diabetes care. This is a deliberate decision on my part. I understand it is also a privileged decision – I have easy access to my endocrinologist, and other diabetes specialists for all my diabetes healthcare needs.

But that’s not the case for everyone, and a lot of people are reliant on their GP for all their diabetes clinical care.

People with diabetes are being let down.

Even though pointing fingers and appropriating blame is not necessarily helpful, it’s what we seem to do. We can blame the system. We can blame a lack of funding. We can blame a lack of continuity of care. We can blame the fact that there are no coordinated screening programs. We can blame the need for more specialist care. We can blame a lousy and ineffective electronic records system.

But what we can’t do is blame people with diabetes. No one asks to get diabetes. No one asks to get diabetes-related complications. So how is it possible that in a system that is letting us down, we are the ones blamed when it happens?

Also, this week, we have heard story after story of missed type 1 diabetes diagnoses with people reporting that despite seeing their GP (often repeatedly) about their symptoms, they were not checked for type 1 diabetes.

It is undeniable that some GPs simply do not know enough about diabetes to diagnose it in the first place, and then to treat it in an ongoing and effective way, and this is leading to those of us living with it not receiving an adequate level of care to live as well as possible with diabetes.

While there may be some hard truths in the report, hopefully the result will be better care for people with diabetes. Because, surely, that is all that matters.