The government is not doing enough to help diabetes patients and has not even announced an updating of the National Diabetes Strategy which expired three years ago, the Nationalist Party said.

In a discussion to mark World Diabetes Day, the party reiterated its call for the government to extend the provision of Continuous Glucose Monitors to patients of all ages suffering type 1 diabetes. 

It also called for a national register of people suffering from diabetes so that the country could have a more accurate picture of the scale of the situation.

Pointing out how complications from diabetes caused problems in other parts of the body, the party, said the government needed to do more both to educate people to prevent the condition - such as by tackling obesity - and also to fight it. 

The current situation was such that the health system was being burdened by patients suffering from diabetes complications. The Renal Unit could not keep up with demand and in some cases, sessions had been reduced.

Minor amputations were taking place at a rate which was more than four times that of other countries, but again no preventive measures, such as a foot screening programme, were being held, the PN said.   

The round table discussion was attended by, among others, PN leader Bernard Grech and MPs Claudette Buttigieg, David Agius, Ian Vassallo and Paula Mifsud Bonnici.