The Government of Madhya Pradesh in association with Novo Nordisk Education Foundation (NNEF) organised the first State round-table meeting on diabetes care in the State. At the start of roundtable, policy-makers, government officials, healthcare professionals, people with diabetes, NGOs, public health institutes and others discussed the current scenario of diabetes in the State and what steps need to be taken to reduce this critical burden and address the issue of diabetes care and management in India.
India currently has 66.8 million people with diabetes. As per a report by the World Economic Forum in conjunction with Harvard School of Public Health, diabetes will cost in India Rs10 trillion between 2012 and 2030. It also states that the estimated annual diabetes cost is currently 1.6 times more than current total annual healthcare budget and 45 times more than current diabetes budget.
Another alarming fact is that the cost of diabetes care per person in India is estimated to be around Rs6,000 (USD 95) per annum. As diabetes proliferates, it levies a great social and economic cost, both on the State as a whole and on individual households. One culprit is lost productivity resulting from premature death; another is the growing cost of treating the disease (medical visits, hospitalisations, pharmaceuticals, blood sugar monitoring) and its well-known complications, such as heart disease, hypertension, and diabetic retinopathy.
There is a need for focused and clear cut effort to bring the importance of diabetes treatment to the fore, give it attention on a national platform and make it part of government and administrative agendas. The Madhya Pradesh state Round table is the first of several planned across several states across India. The State round table is a unique platform to address the common cause of diabetes, to discuss, strategise and support key stakeholders and policy makers to tackle the challenges of awareness, capacity building & offering best quality care for people with diabetes.