JDRF Brings Together Ottawa Community, Researcher, and Elected Officials to Discuss Affordable Access to Life-Changing Technologies for type 1 diabetes

OTTAWA, Sept. 12, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On Wednesday, September 18, JDRF Canada will host a community forum to address the need for access to affordable type 1 diabetes (T1D) technologies for the more than 300,000 Canadians living with the disease who are otherwise burdened with crushing out-of-pocket costs that can amount to up to $15,000 every year per person.

Part of JDRF's recently launched #AccessforAll campaign, the local ?Technology and Diabetes: Access for All' event provides an opportunity for residents to come together to discuss public coverage issues and to encourage adding advanced glucose monitor devices to public programs in Ontario.

JDRF is the leading global organization funding type 1 diabetes research.

With an estimated 96,570 people living with type 1 diabetes in Ontario, a large number of Ottawa residents are battling the following realities associated with T1D:

• Every year about 1.4% of patients with type 1 diabetes are hospitalized due to hypoglycemia at a mean cost of C$3,775 per patient per year. Another 1.5% of type 1 diabetes patients end up with extra clinical appointments as a result of hypoglycemia at a mean cost of $157 per patient per year.
   
• Parents, children and adults live with this every day. Many parents and patients check blood glucose levels every 2 hours--even throughout the night-- to prevent hospitalizations.
   
• Patients with type 1 diabetes from a very young age and their families must manage their disease with insulin either through a pump or through injection. Even with this attention, patients may experience metabolic disorders, loss of consciousness or coma in the short term.
   
• Over the long term, people with type 1 diabetes can experience serious complications, including stroke, heart disease, nerve damage, and eye damage, leading to blindness, amputations and death. Each complication is a significant burden to patients, their families and our health care system. New and innovative advanced glucose monitoring technologies, such as CGM and FGM are the standard of care in helping patients and families with type 1 diabetes to manage the disease, with great benefits to their quality of life. But with no public coverage for these devices, patients are left to cover the high costs out-of-pocket.
   
• Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which a person's pancreas stops producing insulin, the hormone that enables people to get energy from food. This leads to higher levels of glucose in the blood and no amount of diet or exercise can prevent it.

For more information about the Technology and Diabetes: Access for All community forum and upcoming locations and dates, to learn more about this pressing Canadian health issue, or to arrange interviews and/or photo opportunities please contact:

Soledad Vega
Marketing & Communications Manager at JDRF Canada
C: (647) 459-7881
[email protected]

About JDRF Canada

JDRF is the leading global organization funding type 1 diabetes research. Our goal is to raise funds to support the most advanced international type 1 diabetes research and progressively remove the impact of this disease from people's lives ? until we achieve a world without type 1 diabetes. JDRF collaborates with a wide spectrum of partners and is the only organization with the scientific resources, regulatory influence, and a working plan to better treat, prevent, and eventually cure type 1 diabetes. JDRF is the largest charitable funder of and advocate for research to cure, prevent and treat T1D in the world. For more information, please visit jdrf.ca.