Australian government criticised for cutting major diabetes programme

Thu, 22 Dec 2011
The federal government of Australia has been criticised for their decision to axe an important health prevention programme that helps people at a high risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

The charity Diabetes Australia has claimed the government has stopped the funding on a AUS$200 million four-year programme where doctors identify those patients who have a greater chance of getting type 2 diabetes and help them to receive advice from healthcare professionals such as dieticians.

Greg Johnson, the national policy adviser for Diabetes Australia, commented "We're very disappointed of course that this funding has ceased and we are very hopeful though that the Australian Government will reconsider fairly quickly."

He added "In the case of type 2 diabetes and this high risk group, we actually have very strong evidence that we can do something. We can prevent the development of type 2 diabetes in the high risk group through this intense dose of lifestyle behaviour change."

Because of the existing time delays, there are concerns that people at a high risk of developing type 2 diabetes will not want to wait for three months before they can start to receive proper healthcare advice about the dangers they are in, which will mean them losing out on guidance available. The decision is also expected to have a knock-on effect on costs to the hospital system in the country, especially as there are now more than a million Australians known and diagnosed with diabetes.

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