Nurses are required to attend a certain amount of continuing education each year in order to maintain their licenses. Today I attended a class on Diabetic Education. The woman who taught the class is an RN, a certified Diabetic Education instructor, and a Case Manager for the hospital in which I work. I was overwhelmed by what I learned from her.

She told a story of a woman with Diabetes who suffered from Hypoglycemic Unawareness. What this means is that she has no signs and symptoms when her blood sugar drops until it is so low that there are dire consequences. Her husband worked the night shift and had come home on three separate occasions to find her in a full seizure on the floor.

In cases like this, the patient can benefit from a wonderful new device which can monitor a person’s blood sugar continuously over a 72 hour period. A monitor like this could help to spot trends in a patient’s blood sugar levels which may not be obvious with traditional finger-stick testing. The FDA has approved this device and the American Diabetes Association has praised its effectiveness for certain patients. Her insurance denied her for this device, stating that it was “experimental” and “unnecessary”.

This woman was fortunate enough to have this case manager who fought tirelessly for her for several months, sending reports, evaluations, and at times, scathing letters to the insurance company until, finally, she was approved. It is quite possible that this case manager saved her life.

Not everyone is fortunate enough to have someone advocate for them in such a way, and often, even that is not enough to get the assistance that patients may need.

Here are a few statistics that I learned today (all of which can be verified on the National Institute of Health’s website, http://www.nih.gov)

* Diabetes is the 6th leading cause of death in the US among patients aged 25 and older; every 10 seconds someone dies from Diabetes.

* Direct & indirect expenditures were estimated to be $132 BILLION annually. The bulk of medical costs were related to insufficient maintenance of blood sugars and the resultant disease processes.

* Diabetes is the leading cause of blindness among people ages 20-74; 90% of this blindness could be prevented by a yearly eye exam

* Uncontrolled Diabetes can result in 2-4 times the normal occurrence of heart disease, heart attacks, and stroke

* Uncontrolled Diabetes is the leading cause of End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD)

So many illnesses that are a direct result of Diabetes could be prevented by routine, simple treatments that are denied to so many people because they are uninsured. Many people who have insurance still do not get the care they need because there are ridiculous caps and limits on supplies necessary to monitor and help maintain healthy blood sugar levels.

How much more money is this country spending on caring for these people after they develop the more serious, life-threatening diseases? How many people have to suffer dialysis, amputations, or worse?

It’s election season. Ask the important questions. Call your government representatives and ask what they are prepared to do to fix this issue. Remember, they work for us! If they can’t be bothered to acknowledge the problem and try to find a solution, then they don’t need to be in that job.