Paul Kuspira’s insulin pump is about two years beyond its expected replacement date, and the 32-year-old doesn’t know how much longer it will keep working.
“My life before the pump was chaos. It was high blood sugar, low blood sugar, I had paramedics have to come help me multiple times and that’s even in the (United) States as well,” Kuspira said.
“Life was unmanageable before I went onto the insulin pump.”
Kuspira was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when he was 18 and outfitted with an insulin pump at age 25. The province covers the cost of insulin pumps for people 26 years old and under.
The pumps cost $7,000 to $8,000 and have an expected life expectancy of five years.
The $7,000 price tag is unaffordable for Kuspira, so he’s advocating for the government to expand coverage of insulin pumps for people older than 26. Whether it is full coverage or partial, he said anything will help.
“I didn’t choose to become diabetic. I have to live with it. So because I’m living with Type 1 diabetes I want to live my best life possible, and my best life possible is having that pump,” Kuspira said.
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“With something that’s $7,000 or $8,000 out of pocket, and again I’m a hard-working Saskatchewan person, I can’t afford a pump.”
That’s what brought Kuspira to the legislative building on Monday from Saskatoon. He, alongside health critic Vicki Mowat, is calling on the province to expand insulin pump coverage.
Reiter said the current government did raise the coverage ceiling from 18 to 26 years old. In his view, Saskatchewan is in the “middle of the pack” for covering insulin pumps.
However, there could be a change in the 2020-21 provincial budget. Reiter said they will be reviewing insulin pump coverage as part of the health budget considerations.
“If this was just simply a matter of good programs versus bad programs it would be easy, but frequently it’s good programs and other good programs all competing for the same healthcare dollar,” Reiter said.
The minister acknowledged that the cost of insulin pumps can put financial pressure on patients.
The budget review of the program will include an analysis of potential spin-off healthcare costs of not funding insulin pumps.
“You look at preventative medicine, you also look at things like how many visits to the emergency room would that prevent. Those kinds of things are always looked at,” Reiter said.
“But it also has to be looked at in comparison to other costs in the healthcare system.”
While the review goes on, Kuspira will be doing what he can to make sure his seven-year-old pump can keep working.
“Currently, there are just motor errors with my pump, because of the fact that it’s just so old. I mean other than that it could fail anytime and then I would have to go back onto manual injections,” he explained.
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