Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Since the early formation of the bipartisan Parliamentary Diabetes Support Group in the parliament just over a decade ago, it has advocated for strong national policy initiatives for people with diabetes and in particular for children who live daily with the complications and restrictions that type 1, or juvenile diabetes, imposes on them. We are about to co-host with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation the fourth Kids in the House event later this year.

This gives young people an opportunity to directly express how diabetes affects their lives day to day. For most it means a regular daily routine of several blood tests and injections. Even in the best controlled situations, some young people live with the complications that arise from HbA1c levels that are difficult to control. That is why the Parliamentary Diabetes Support Group, along with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, asked for and supported an insulin pump subsidy scheme prior to the 2007 election. It was aimed at young people from low-income families who do not have private health insurance.

An insulin pump is a small computerised device that provides a slow continuous level of rapid-acting insulin analogue delivering basal rates to accurately match the individual's needs throughout the day. The insulin pump is an important groundbreaking technology. According to the Australian Department of Health and Ageing's own national evidence based clinical care guidelines for type 1 diabetes in 2011, it is known to provide positive changes in the diabetes management, including reduced HbA1c levels. The lifetime use of pump therapy was shown to improve cost-effectiveness ratios when the long-term health and quality of life improvements associated with pump therapy were included.

Compared with the conventional multiple daily injection therapy, insulin pump therapy shows a significant reduction in both adults and children of severe vision loss, end-stage renal disease, peripheral vascular disease and myocardial infarction. Further, the guidelines demonstrated that pump therapy was associated with an improvement in life expectancy for both adults and children. The same study found that insulin pump therapy was cost-effective over a lifetime of treatment.

The insulin pump program implemented following the 2007 election initially had a poor take-up rate due to the criteria. The Parliamentary Diabetes Support Group, along with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, asked the Minister for Health and Ageing to review the program. That was agreed to and, following the review, changes were made to the criteria. In its submission late last year to that review, the program administrator, JDRF, demonstrated that the program had significantly improved its performance over the previous period. Improvements include a copayment funding agreement with manufacturers and an enhanced promotion campaign. This has seen the take-up rate of pumps double, which is a very pleasing result. But JDRF provided the department with a forecast which showed that funding for 556 pumps would be needed over the next four years to 2015-16 based on improved patient demand and in the context of increased diagnosis rates for type 1 diabetes of three per cent per annum.

Although we are pleased that the federal budget has provided for the continuation of the program, it is of grave concern that there will be a considerable shortfall in what the budget has allocated against the forecast provided by JDRF. Indeed it meets less than half of the projected demand. In essence, it means that the funding for this four-year program, on the current take-up rate, will be exhausted within the first four months of the next financial year. Given the serious and life-threatening complications of diabetes and the efficacy of insulin pump therapy as demonstrated by the government's own guidelines, this is a regrettable decision and I will be asking the Minister for Health to reassess the program with a view to ensuring that it is adequately funded.

In the seconds that I have available I acknowledge the tremendous work done by Mike Wilson, the chief executive officer of JDRF, and his team in making sure that children get the best possible, best practice medicine for kids with type 1 diabetes.