People with type 1 diabetes are being forced to endure the “stress and anxiety” of insulin shortages, patients, pharmacists and health campaigners have warned.
The “distressing” drug scarcity, the latest to affect the UK, is sowing uncertainty for the 400,000 people with the condition, with some products not available again until next year amid global manufacturing shortages.
Britain is already contending with record numbers of medicines becoming hard or impossible to obtain, including those for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and epilepsy.
The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) said “a regular and reliable supply of insulin is essential for life” for people with type 1 diabetes. That is because their disease – an autoimmune condition unrelated to type 2 diabetes – means they cannot make insulin naturally and must inject it every day or receive it through a pump.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) confirmed there were “supply issues with a limited number of insulin products” that patients might find “distressing”.
One patient, an NHS doctor who puts vials of the drug into her insulin pump, said: “I spent the last two days trying to get hold of insulin to treat my type 1 diabetes. I was terrified when my usual, very reliable pharmacist told me he couldn’t get hold of my insulin. I had no idea that insulin could go out of stock. Type 1 diabetics fall ill and will die within a few days without insulin. I’m worried for fellow diabetics, not only to access the supply, to stay alive, but the stress and anxiety this causes.”
Source: Guardian, 28 April 2024
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