As I meet with people living with diabetes around Australia, I often reflect on how generous they are with their time. I had the privilege of sitting down with Newcastle’s James Ashman who is a busy executive. His story is a powerful reminder of how type 1 diabetes can turn someone’s life upside down, and how resilience and determination can shape a new path forward.

James was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at 41 during the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a complete shock to him and his family. “I didn’t even know what it meant at first,” he admitted. But instead of letting the diagnosis overwhelm him, James used it as a catalyst to improve his health, finding what he calls a silver lining in an otherwise challenging situation.

For a while, James experienced a “honeymoon period” with his diabetes management, but recent months have brought new challenges. He spoke highly of his Credentialled Diabetes Educator (CDE) whose guidance has been invaluable. However, the limited availability of CDE services has made James aware of the healthcare gaps that many others might face.

James is currently in the waiting period for upgraded private health insurance, which will give him access to an insulin pump. He is keenly aware of the financial strain that comes with managing diabetes. While James considers himself fortunate to be able to afford the necessary tools, he’s deeply concerned about those who can’t.

When I asked James what he’d say to the Prime Minister, his answer was clear: “Technology like insulin pumps should be accessible, especially for kids with type 1. It’s hard to believe they aren’t free for all children.”

James’s story reflects both the personal and systemic challenges of living with diabetes. It also strengthens our resolve at Diabetes Australia to advocate for greater and fairer access to diabetes technology.

If you would like to be part of the national community of people managing diabetes across Australia, Diabetes YOUnited offers more than just free membership. It’s a way for Australians to come together, advocate for better diabetes support, and amplify the voices of those most affected.

The “On the Go with the GCEO” series is amplifying the voices of people with lived experience of diabetes and frontline healthcare professionals to build awareness and drive policy change. Stay tuned as Justine continues her journey across Australia, meeting with more families and communities who inspire us all with their stories.

On a beautiful Sunday morning at the Adelaide Showground’s Farmers Market, I finished our Diabetes YOUnited cook-off with chef Miguel Maestre and sat down for a chat with Molly and Jane.

Molly Brooksby is a rising AFLW star with Port Adelaide, and Jane Giles is a dedicated nurse and credentialled diabetes educator.

Fresh off the plane from a game in Melbourne the day before, Molly arrived at our cook-off full of energy and positivity, the same approach she brings to managing her type 1 diabetes.

At 19, Molly’s life is a whirlwind of training and study, yet she maintains an impressively balanced routine to manage her diabetes.

Diagnosed almost five years ago, she shared how important it is to have a supportive family and community, as well as access to the latest technology, such as her continuous glucose monitor, which helps her keep her blood glucose stable on and off the field.

Her story underscores the importance of Diabetes YOUnited, our free national program designed to help Australians like Molly stay healthy and informed no matter where they are in life.

Jane Giles, a former president of the Australian Diabetes Educators Association, joined us to talk about the urgent need for better access to diabetes supplies and services.

Working in the remote Western Australian Tjuntjuntjara Aboriginal Community, she sees firsthand the challenges people face in managing diabetes in remote areas. Jane spoke with me about how we have to listen closely to people living with diabetes to understand what support they really need.

Hearing from Molly and Jane reinforced my commitment to making Diabetes YOUnited a vital resource for every Australian, helping ease the burden of diabetes with accessible, practical support.

Stay tuned as I continue my journey across Australia, sharing more stories from our inspiring diabetes community.

The “On the Go with the GCEO” series is amplifying the voices of people with lived experience of diabetes and frontline healthcare professionals to build awareness and drive policy change. Stay tuned as Justine continues her journey across Australia, meeting with more families and communities who inspire us all with their stories.

Coffee in Perth on a Saturday morning is a great way to start the weekend.

During a recent visit to this beautiful part of the world for the Diabetes YOUnited national roadshow, I had the pleasure of meeting a remarkable person living with type 2 diabetes.

Lina di Franco was originally diagnosed with gestational diabetes over 30 years ago, and then, as so often happens, she later developed type 2 diabetes. A recent breast cancer battle also affected Lina’s life, and she knows first-hand how a serious health issue like that can affect a person, and impact their diabetes management.

Lina spoke to me about the power of support and how having people around her to connect with about diabetes has been a game changer. When Lina was first diagnosed with diabetes, she really noticed the stigma attached to the condition and found community support made the journey easier.

Lina has lived with diabetes for many years now and has a lot of hard-earned wisdom to share.

Hearing Lina’s story reminded me how different each person’s diabetes journey is, which is why Diabetes YOUnited is so essential. We launched this free, national membership program to ensure that all Australians with diabetes can access the resources and support they need, regardless of where they live or their financial situation.

As I continue to meet people across the country, I’m inspired by the strength and resilience of our diabetes community. Each story fuels our mission to make diabetes care more accessible and equitable.

Whether it’s a person who is newly diagnosed or someone like Lina who has decades of lived experience and a lot of wisdom to share, community lifts us all up. YOUnited we are stronger.

The “On the Go with the GCEO” series is amplifying the voices of people with lived experience of diabetes and frontline healthcare professionals to build awareness and drive policy change. Stay tuned as Justine continues her journey across Australia, meeting with more families and communities who inspire us all with their stories.

When the mum of a child with type 1 diabetes looks at you and says the cost of diabetes care is getting harder to manage, and the whole family is making sacrifices, it’s very hard to hear. The cost of living crisis in Australia is hitting the whole community hard but it is definitely amplified for our diabetes community.

 As a mum myself, I know parents would do anything for their child’s health.

With the rising cost of living, diabetes care is becoming more challenging than ever, with some families really struggling to make ends meet.

Diabetes YOUnited is Diabetes Australia’s new free national membership program. It’s designed to ensure all Australians living with diabetes, no matter where they’re from or whatever their financial situation, can access the services they need to live a full and healthy life.

I’ll be travelling around the country in the coming weeks talking to people about Diabetes YOUnited, and I want to bring you along to meet some amazing people as they tell their stories about diabetes in Australia.

Today I caught up with Perth mum Yvette Saint at the Murray Street Mall.

I joined Yvette and her children Olivia (9) and Emily (6) to hear about their journey with type 1 diabetes. Olivia was diagnosed just before her third birthday, a time filled with constant finger pricks and injections.

Yvette spoke about how frightening those early days were before Olivia’s diagnosis. Today, thanks to continuous glucose monitoring and an insulin pump, Olivia’s diabetes management has improved.

Yet the cost of these technologies is placing a heavy burden on the family’s finances.

Yvette shared with me that Olivia’s little sister, Emily, has tested positive repeatedly to diabetes antibodies. Doctors say she is also going to develop type 1 diabetes in the future.

During our conversation, we discussed how important it is to have affordable access to diabetes technologies, especially if they have two children living with type 1 diabetes. For families like the Saints, the cost of essential devices, including up to $9,000 annually for an insulin pump per child, can be a major obstacle. We talked about Diabetes Australia’s campaign for increased Federal Government subsidies to make this life-changing technology accessible to all families in need.

The Saint family’s story highlights the realities faced by many Australian families navigating the complexities of type 1 diabetes, and just how resilient they are in the face of significant challenges.

Through Diabetes YOUnited, we hope to be able to support even more Australians with the information they need to access good healthcare.

As Yvette and I wrapped up our conversation, I was reminded about just how much having a supportive community around you matters.

Stay tuned for more blog posts in the next few weeks as I meet more amazing individuals living with diabetes and share their stories. 

The “On the Go with the GCEO” series is amplifying the voices of people with lived experience of diabetes, and frontline healthcare professionals, to build awareness and drive policy change. Stay tuned as Justine continues her journey across Australia, meeting with more families and communities who inspire us all with their stories.

This National Diabetes Week we are calling for more affordable access to life changing technology for people living with diabetes.

Listen to Group Chief Executive Officer Justine Cain as she explains our campaign to Unite in the fight for tech on 2CC Radio Canberra.

2CC Radio Canberra audio

This World Diabetes Day, Diabetes Australia, together with the ADS and the ADEA, is launching the Diabetes Research Changes Lives campaign to highlight the impact of research transforming the lives of people living with diabetes, and call for more funding for diabetes research.

To change the trajectory of the diabetes epidemic, research must be at the forefront of our response. We have world-class researchers, undertaking world-class research, but this can’t be sustained if funding continues to decline.

Diabetes Australia Group CEO, Justine Cain, reached out to the Australian research community to communicate our plan to address this situation and affect change.

• In the coming months, Diabetes Australia and the ADS will host a number of roundtable discussions with leading researchers from across the country to develop a national strategic roadmap for research. It is critical we have a clear plan that outlines priorities for research and investment.

• Diabetes Australia has appointed a Director of Research (announcement of successful candidate in December 2023) to provide leadership as we collectively work with the research community to develop a national diabetes research strategy.

• Diabetes Australia has bolstered our fundraising and philanthropy efforts, with the appointment of a senior philanthropy leader to grow funding so that Diabetes Australia can continue to fund and provide research grants across Australia.

• We are stepping up our political engagement and advocacy efforts to lobby the Australian Government and other funders to increase investment in diabetes research.

“Funding for diabetes research has declined significantly over the past decade. Yet the number of people living with all types of diabetes continues to increase,” Justine Cain writes.

“Diabetes Australia shares the concerns of the diabetes research community, and we are committed to addressing the need for more research funding to improve the lives of people living with or at risk of diabetes”.

Diabetes research changes lives and creates hope for the future. Research is critical in our fight to drive change to prevent, treat and, ultimately, cure diabetes.

To get involved, you can go to our Spark Change platform and add your support, or share your views, to our petition to increase funding.

This month marks the third anniversary of KeepSight, Australia’s diabetes eye screening initiative – a public/private partnership designed to tackle diabetes-related blindness in Australia.
 
Diabetes is the leading cause of blindness in working age Australians. On average one in three people with diabetes will develop some form of diabetes eye disease. That’s a sobering statistic.
 
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Evidence shows that early detection and timely treatment can prevent most diabetes-related vision loss.
 
KeepSight is a program that provides people with diabetes with reminders when their regular eye checks are due making it easier for people to schedule appointments. That means if issues do develop, they are detected early when they are still treatable. The program is proving popular for people with diabetes- in less that three years, nearly 250,000 people have signed up to the program.
 
KeepSight has the potential to fundamentally ‘shift the dial’ on diabetes-related blindness in Australia. The premise is simple. By encouraging people with diabetes to get their eyes checked more regularly, we can help them to keep their sight. 
 
And once we know someone has registered, and is getting regular checks, we can focus our efforts on those people who may be at risk of losing their sight because they’re not getting checked.

For more information www.keepsight.org.au

As a person from English, Irish and Scottish descent, I’m privileged to be able to share this country with the first sovereign Nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands. For more than 60,000 years these lands were cared for by First Nations people.

Sadly, the arrival of European settlement was catastrophic for many First Nations people and it is the responsibility of all Australians to build a better, fairer future for Indigenous people. One part of building that future is committing to reconciliation and acknowledging the past injustices that First Nations people have endured.

Reconciliation is everyone’s business and this week during National Reconciliation Week I’ll be striving, as I do every week, to live up to its promises and challenges. The theme this year is “Be Brave – Make Change” and I’m committed to being brave and making change in my role as Group CEO of Diabetes Australia as well as in my personal and social life.

Reconciliation is particularly important to Diabetes Australia because diabetes is the leading contributor to the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. That’s why reducing the impact of diabetes is a key priority for our organisation. That’s why we’re investing in First Nations team members, consulting and listening to First Nations peoples and advocating for more funding and more programs to better support First Nations people.

It is a significant challenge, but reconciliation has to be backed up with actions.

We often describe diabetes as the single biggest challenge confronting Australia’s health system and new data released this week by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare confirms it.

The data shows the Australian health system spends almost $2.5 billion a year on all types of diabetes. On top of that diabetes is a leading cause of several other costly conditions including heart disease ($2 billion per annum), chronic kidney disease ($1.7 billion per annum) and stroke ($660 million per annum).

When you add it all together these four conditions cost the Australian healthcare system $6.86 billion every single year. That’s on top of the devastating personal cost.  

This is clearly unsustainable, but the good news is there are things we can do about it.

We need smart spending and smart policy to get better outcomes for people with diabetes and reduce the strain on our health system. This means investing early in preventing diabetes-related complications and preventing people from developing type 2 diabetes.

Diabetes Australia is working with the best minds in Australia’s diabetes community, and we know there are modest investments that could pay massive dividends.

That’s why this Federal Election we are asking all sides of politics to commit to a number of priority actions including improving access to diabetes technology, better early detection of all types of diabetes, preventing diabetes-related complications and reducing the impact of diabetes in First Nations communities.

All of these would deliver huge savings for the Australia economy.