This headline "Diabetes: New Zealand’s greatest epidemic" is from this article by Farah Hancock from Newsroom.
The journalist describes how Professor Simmons presented early results from data gathered during the more than 20 years of audits carried out in Primary care to a full house at the Diabetes Foundation Aotearoa Diabetes Summit at Waipuna Lodge. One of the significant points presented was that “Things haven’t really got any better, both in terms of management and inequality, the dire outcomes for Māori and Pacific patients. It was quite shocking.”
It was also reported about the concern around not yet having the most suitable medications and treatments available as tools. Two new drugs remain unavailable in New Zealand and as Professor Simmons is quoted as saying “These are available in all of the other OECD countries and these are the only drugs that have been shown, besides metformin, to reduce weight, improve your glucose substantially and reduce mortality.”
