Calls to fund new device that lets people with diabetes sleep through the night – Stuff

Samantha Burrow learnt to count to 100 by jumping on the trampoline when she was eight, but it wasn’t for fun.
After the Wellington teen was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, 100 bounces became a way of quickly driving down spiking blood glucose levels.
Burrow, now 13, is used to thinking about these levels “more than anything else” – her life depends on it. “Four is the floor” and a highway to dangerously low sugar, Burrow said, while anything above 15 is too high.
In 2018, she started using a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) – a disc anchored into her arm detects her glucose levels every few minutes. Before, she had to scan it to get a reading, which meant waking up in the night.
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But in a game-changer for the Burrow family’s sleep patterns and the teen’s social life, a new generation of the tech means an automatic alarm goes on her phone if her levels reach either danger zone.
“The alarms will help massively and give me peace of mind so I can do everything more freely,” Burrow said, rattling off her hobbies – horse riding, skating and surfing.
However, despite the major difference in quality of life, no continuous glucose monitoring system is funded in New Zealand.
The one Burrow uses, launched in New Zealand on Tuesday, is officially called the FreeStyle Libre 2 Continuous Glucose Monitoring System and is one of the cheapest available, at a cost of about $93 a fortnight.
Wellington-based endocrinologist Rosemary Hall said some existing rival brands were double the price.
“They are life-saving devices that currently are a luxury for people with diabetes, but they shouldn’t be … and yet they can avoid people going to hospital.”
Hall, who is also president of the NZ Society for the Study of Diabetes, was hopeful the latest improvements to the technology would see New Zealand fund CGMs for everyone with type 1 diabetes.
“In a system that’s already got enormous inequities and has poor outcomes for Māori and Pacific and people from rural and low income areas, we see this divide increasing enormously.”
Pharmac wanted to fund the Libre 2 and another CGM “when we have the budget available”, the agency’s director of operations Lisa Williams said.
It was considering the rapidly changing device functionality and “applying this consistently across all currently open funding applications”, Williams said.
Funding the Libre 2 would affect more than 16,000 people in the first year, growing to more 28,500 by year five, Williams said.
Those numbers meant the impact on the agency’s pharmaceutical budget “would be quite significant”.
But Diabetes New Zealand chief executive Heather Verry said funding CGMs would save on hospitalisations and lead to fewer complications.
“It’s an easy win – funding this technology to at least help 25,000 people who are insulin-dependent, then you can start to address the other issues that determine the prevalence of type 2 diabetes. It’s sort of like a no-brainer.”
In the UK, CGMs are free for people with type 1 diabetes and those with insulin-dependent type 2 diabetes. In Australia, they are heavily subsidised for anyone with type 1 diabetes, costing them just $15 a box.
*CLARIFICATION: An earlier version of this story labelled the Libre continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) system as the cheapest available in New Zealand. While the device itself is the cheapest, rival brand Aidex offers a CGM that works out slightly cheaper after postage and GST. Amended January 10, 2.51pm.
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