The enthusiasm the Government has shown to combat the Covid-19 pandemic is needed to fight the current diabetes crisis, a senior Pacific doctor says.
Pasifika Medical Association member and public health physician Dr Corina Grey said there is an avalanche of diabetes amongst Pacific and Mori communities.
Her comments come in response to a report revealing type 2 diabetes costs the country $2.1 billion a year, and one in four Pasifika people will have the disease in 20 years.
Dion Tainui died recently after a life blighted by drug use and diabetes.
Covid has shown us what can happen where there is a government-led system wide response to a crisis, Grey said.
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What the government must realise is that diabetes is a national crisis as well, especially amongst our Pacific population.
The association is teaming up with Te Ohu Rata Aotearoa, the Mori Medical Practitioners Association, and the New Zealand Society for the Study of Diabetes, to lobby the Government and Ministry of Health to focus on the care of people living with type 2 diabetes.
Grey said she hopes the Government can address the diabetes problem as seriously as it did Covid-19.
We had a system-wide response to Covid-19 because it was immediate, and it obviously affected peoples ability to move around the world, to engage in business and to leave their homes, she said.
Diabetes is more insidious. It takes time for the complications for diabetes to come about, like kidney disease and amputations.
The PwC report on type 2 diabetes was released on Monday.
It showed the health system spends more combating diabetes than it does treating cancer, and the social cost is predicted to rise from $2.1b to $3.5b in the next two decades.
Pacific peoples have a significantly higher rate of diabetes than other groups, with those aged 65 to 74 five times more likely to have the disease compared to people of European ethnicity in that age group.
We have been talking about this impending crisis of diabetes for years. We need to prioritise diabetes in the health agenda, and it needs to be Government-led, Grey said.
We have never had a Government-led response. They have the opportunity to take the learning from Covid-19 and apply that to diabetes.