Today, Diabetes Ireland, launched its 2022 Annual Report summarising its work and activities in the areas of diabetes advocacy, education, support, and awareness.
Throughout 2022, Diabetes Ireland continued to provide its services to the diabetes community ensuring that thousands of people continued to receive education, support, and motivation to maintain good management of their condition. Likewise, the continuing support of our members and the diabetes community has helped Diabetes Ireland enormously in maintaining our services, and for this, we are extremely grateful.
Advocacy was once again a main priority of Diabetes Ireland. Our aim is to see improved public services, better and quicker access to good quality care, diabetes technology and medications, and better recognition of diabetes and the diabetes community by the Government and its public officials. Work is continuously ongoing to achieve improvements that will benefit the diabetes community. Diabetes Ireland launched its 2023 Pre-budget submission in the summer of 2022 which proposed a number of immediate actions for implementation to improve the quality of life for over 295,000 people living with diabetes and reduce the long-term costs of preventable diabetes complications. Following a positive and engaging meeting with the Minister for Health in advance of the budget, we were delighted to see new budgetary funding allocated for a range of diabetes priorities.
Diabetes Ireland also called for the setting up of a diabetes task force to develop a 10-year National Diabetes Strategy that provides vision, leadership, and direction so that the HSE can recruit the staff required and improve the quality of life for people living with diabetes and reduce the long-term costs to the health service of diabetes complications. We are hopeful that we will see this come to fruition in the near future.
Click on the Annual Report 2022 Infographic for more information.
Diabetes Ireland continued to offer excellent support and services to people with diabetes and their families. In 2022, we aimed to deliver services to people with diabetes and their families by increasing awareness of diabetes and encouraging them to make positive lifestyle changes.
Diabetes SMART was launched as a free interactive online education platform which is available at www.diabeteseducation.ie. Developed by Diabetes Ireland with support from Novo Nordisk, this free interactive programme was launched to meet increasing demand from people with Type 2 diabetes who want to learn more about their condition and how to manage it effectively.
A campaign to highlight the need for people living with Diabetes to be aware of their kidney health. was launched in collaboration with the Irish Kidney Association and supported by Astra Zeneca. The campaign focused on raising awareness of the link between diabetes and kidney disease and highlighting that screening for kidney disease is a routine part of your diabetes care and encouraged all people with diabetes to discuss their risk of kidney disease with their Doctor or Nurse and to take all the necessary steps to ensure their kidneys remain as healthy as possible.
The summer months saw a return to face-to-face events with a number of outdoor family events held, followed by various Christmas parties in December.
Both our Diabetes Ireland Care Centres in Cork and Dublin continue to be extremely busy with high numbers attending each Centre. As well as providing podiatry, Diabetic Retina Screening and counselling services, our Care Centre’s continue to be a fantastic resource for people seeking support and information on the many facets of diabetes, for both people who may be recently diagnosed and for those living years with the condition and who need some additional support to manage their condition more effectively.
As ever, our goal is to support, educate, motivate, and empower people with diabetes and their families and to advocate for optimum health care for all those with diabetes in Ireland. As well as maintaining current services, we are committed to growing our services long into the future. We need and want you to become and stay a member so we can mutually support each other.
Once again, we cannot express enough our appreciation for the ongoing support we receive from our current volunteers, fundraisers, healthcare professionals, members, employees, corporate supporters and the HSE for helping us help our community. We must all continue to work together for people with diabetes in Ireland so that we can all live long and healthy lives.
