Roche Diabetes Care Drives Sustainable Access to Care by Joining Hands with Sweetlings
Roche Diabetes Care India (RDC India) joins hands with Hirabai Cowasji Jehangir Medical Research Institute (HCJMRI) (Sweetlings- run by HCJMRI and Jehangir Hospital, Pune), to provide holistic medical care and support in therapy adherence to children with type 1 diabetes (T1D). This is part of RDC India’s commitment towards improving sustainable access to care to people with diabetes across India.
Currently, not only is India home to the second largest number (77 million) of adults with diabetes worldwide, but beyond this number, nearly 57% of India’s population remains undiagnosed. With an estimated number of 1 lakh, India also ranks highest among top 10 countries for estimated number of children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes (0–14 years)1. This data brings to fore the urgent need for awareness, early diagnosis and therapy adherence through testing and continuous monitoring for blood glucose.
Speaking about the initiative, Omar Sherief Mohammad, Cluster Head India Middle East and Africa, RDC said, “The meaning of access to care goes beyond just providing medical treatment and includes creating an eco-system that enables early diagnosis and treatment along with the required socio-economic support critical to therapy adherence. Often the issues impacting access to care is rooted in biases that exist due to lack of awareness. In order to make a significant difference, we need to first break these barriers.”
“In Sweetlings, we have found a partner who is as committed to this purpose as we are. We hope to extend our partnership to co-create a sustainable model that enables conducting real world evidence studies to understand the health economic impact. This will help comprehensively highlight the burden of diabetes in the country and the barriers in accessing care”, he added.
Dr. Anuradha Khadilkar, Deputy Director HCJMRI said, “The collaboration with Roche Diabetes Care will enable us to extend our holistic program to more children with T1D so that they can lead fuller and happier lives. Managing type 1 diabetes is a challenging 24×7 job for young children and their families. This is why, for over 10 years now, we have worked closely with underprivileged children and youth (upto 21 years) to give them overall medical as well as psychological support, nutritional counselling, and educational guidance.”
Sweetlings has been working towards providing awareness, education and healthcare to underprivileged children with T1D over the last two decades. They are also involved in socially and clinically responsible research. Through their dedicated efforts, Sweetlings has touched the lives of many families by providing them support beyond just medical care such that they are able to lead meaningful lives as useful members of the society. RDC India is supporting Sweetlings by providing monetary support towards holistic care for 23 children with T1D along with a contribution of 152 Accu-Chek Active blood glucose testing kits and 5600 Accu-Chek Active 50s test strip vials to help support diagnosis, therapy adherence and complete medical care of children with T1D for one year.
As part of their ongoing efforts to sustain the continuum of care, RDC has recently concluded a pan-India initiative to drive awareness about T1D under its award-winning campaign The DiaBeaters. Over the past two years this campaign has reached across 11 states, touching the lives of 11000 children. During World Diabetes Day 2021, RDC India aided diabetes screening and awareness camps by providing 15000+ blood glucometers, 100,000+ test strips and conducting 650+ awareness programs, thereby touching the lives of 2000+ people with diabetes.
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