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Austerity cuts hitting diabetes care for young
11 NOVEMBER 2013
Good-quality care for young people with type-1 diabetes in Ireland appears to be unevenly distributed, according to a new study.
It warned that cuts, generated by "national austerity measures" appear to be negatively impacting health services for young adults with the disease.
There is a need for more doctors who specialise in the treatment of the disease, and additionaldiabetesnurse specialists, as well as allied health professional posts.
The research was led by Dr Myles Balfe of the Royal College of Surgeons and included researchers from Beaumont and Connolly Hospitals in Dublin as well as the Department of Sociology inUCC.
The findings – which followed structured interviews with 35 young people and 13 healthcare professionals – showed:
* Services are often beset by long waiting times, inadequate continuity of care, over-reliance on junior doctors and inadequate professional-patient interaction times.
* Many rural and non-specialist services lacked funding for diabetes education programmes, diabetes nurse specialists, insulin pumps or for psychological support.
* Allied health services, such as psychology, podiatry and dietician services, appeared to be underfunded in many parts of the country.
* While Irish diabetes services lacked funding prior to therecession, the economic decline in Ireland, and the subsequent austerity imposed on the Irish health service as a result of that decline, appears to have additional negative consequences.
Despite these difficulties, a number of specialist healthcare services for young adults with diabetes seemed to be providing excellent quality of care.
Although young adults and professionals identified many of the same problems with Irish diabetes services, professionals appeared to be more critical of diabetes services than young adults.
Young adults generally expressed high levels of satisfaction with services, even where they noted that aspects of those services were sub-optimal.
The study said that just under half of young adult interviewees described long waiting times to see diabetes professionals.
"These young adults felt that they waited longer now to see healthcare professionals compared to when they were younger. Waiting times of between six months and a year – and very occasionally longer – were common."
There appeared to be two reasons for this, including the fact that they sometimes attended specialist young adult clinics when they were in their late teens and early twenties, which placed a strong emphasis on seeing young adults on a regular basis.
"Some of the interviewees in this study had transitioned out of these clinics and into general adult diabetes services where waiting times were much longer.