Beirut, 11 October 2016: The Lebanese Parliament’s Health Committee discussed in Beirut recommended legislative action and potential government policies to tackle the growing burden of Diabetes in the country with the visiting chair of the Parliamentarians for Diabetes Global Network, the Lebanese Diabetes Society, the Chronic Care Center, and Novo Nordisk.
“As parliamentarians, we have a duty to see how we can help diabetic patients, specifically with tackling insurance companies which either refuse coverage or impose exclusions on them, and we need to entice the government to impose laws against this,” said Dr. Atef Majdalani, the head of the Lebanese Parliament’s Health Committee, who praised the Ministry of Public Health for providing support to people living with diabetes. “We also need to encourage awareness of diabetes and means to prevent and manage it. We have a long road ahead …”
The meeting with Sir Michael Hirst – current Parliamentarians for Diabetes Global Network Chair, and former president of the International Diabetes Federation – was also attended by MPs Mohamad El-Hajjar, Naji Gharios, Mohammad Kabbani, and Serge Torsarkissian.
Hirst was in Lebanon at the invitation of the Lebanese Diabetes Society (LDS), which has been active since 1981 in raising awareness of diabetes and patient advocacy.
LDS President, Dr. Mohamad Sandid, said “Diabetes is a hidden cause of death in Lebanon through its various complications, with people often falsely assuming many deaths stem from heart and other diseases that are direct complications of diabetes.”
Hirst became a champion for diabetes when his daughter was diagnosed and he was a member of the British parliament in the 1980s, “and I realized back then when diabetes still had a stigma to it how much parliament can do in the fight against the disease by enacting laws to halt its rise, and provide access to treatment.”
He called for more education of young people to eat sensibly and adopt a healthy lifestyle that includes sports and physical activity; focus public health messages on encouraging behaviour changes among the general public; planning towns and cities in a manner that provides recreation activities and opportunities to walk rather than utilize vehicles for transportation; promoting the availability of healthier foodstuff through support of agriculture; persuading vendors to offer healthier options; taxing unhealthy food options; and placing good health at the center of all policies.
Michele Abi Saad, Director of Lebanon’s Chronic Care Center which has been providing medico-social support to diabetic children since 1993, also called on parliament “to regulate the insurance sector which refrains from covering diabetics after diagnosis, to enact a law to stop schools from expelling students who are diagnosed with diabetes, and to ensure schools have nurses and adequate treatment equipment.” She also praised “vital cooperation with the pharmaceutical industry which is playing a major role in prevention and awareness of diabetes, as it should.”
“Novo Nordisk is committed to Changing Diabetes worldwide, and is ready to collaborate with authorities in Lebanon, as we do with our global partners, to raise awareness, improve prevention, promote earlier diagnosis and expand access to care,” said Toufic Eid, Lebanon Market Access and Public Affairs Manager at Novo Nordisk, the world’s diabetes research and treatment leader. “We work for a future where fewer people get diabetes, everyone with diabetes is diagnosed and everyone who is diagnosed receives adequate treatment and can live a life with as few limitations as possible.”
Only six percent of people with diabetes live a life free from related complications, based on what is called the ‘Rule of Halves’1, which reflects the fact that only half of people with diabetes are diagnosed, of whom only half receive treatment, and again just half achieve treatment targets, with only half of this already relatively small group actually achieving desired outcomes of living without complications.
Hirst also held meetings in Tripoli, with MPs Mouiine el Merehbi, Kazem El-Kheyr, Dr. Kazem Abdel Aziz, Dr. Riad Rahhal, and Khodr Habib; and in the Bekaa with MPs Ali Abdalla, Joseph Maalouf, Tony Abou Khater, Jamal Jarrah, and Dr. Kassem Araji.