More insulin needles, please

THE EDITOR: Please permit me space to appeal to the Minister of Health and those responsible for government purchasing of medical supplies. On behalf of children living with diabetes, we have been having problems in receiving the needles that are part of the mediation for us. When you are given a prescription for, let us say, one month’s supply, we receive 15 needles. Now these needles are used twice or three times a day in some cases. When we say to the people in the pharmacy these needles are not enough, their response is “we only receive one box and this has to be shared among many, re-use the needles.”

We cannot argue with that, as there are a lot of children with diabetes and the need to share around is necessary, but this does not change the fact that needles are in great demand, and we expect that the government would make provision to address this. We are asking that the Minister of Health and the people responsible for purchasing know that needles are important as the insulin that we use.

CARA VAUGHN
Port-of-Spain