Helping children in Bangladesh

Every dollar, 58.825 USD so far, has been donated to the program since it was initiated in November 2003. The donations presents a great help to the children of Bangladesh for whom insulin and basic materials are otherwise out of reach.

Every month the employees donate part of their pay check through the "Take Action" program running in the Danish offices of Novo Nordisk. Due to their kind support the children are now receiving medical attention, insulin, syringes and blood sugar measurement devices on a regular basis. The donations will continue for at least three more years.

According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), about 83% of the population lives on less than 2 USD a day. It is estimated that only 10% of the population have an income that enables them to afford healthcare and medication. An additional 13% (primarily living in the urban areas) are able to visit free clinics. Thus, only 23 % have access to relevant healthcare. Recent study estimates that some 40 % of people with diabetes in Bangladesh are not able to support themselves productively because of complications related to their diabetes.

Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world and has the lowest health care spending per capita. The main focus is on infections and maternal child health (reduction in infant mortality). The prevalence of diabetes in Bangladesh is estimated to be 5.2% among the adult population. It is estimated that almost 3 million people have diabetes in Bangladesh. The majority have type 2 diabetes. Specialised diabetes care is virtually non-existent in the public sector, but in recent years some private sector hospitals have established diabetes clinics.

Lovely a six year old girl, benefiting from the programme

Anil Kapur the Managing Director from the World Diabetes Foundation visited the project with people from BIRDEM and tells this story of a six year old girl Lovely, one of the children who benefits from the programme.

Lovely has been suffering from Type 1 DM for the past two years. She has been diagnosed as a diabetic since March 2003. At that particular time she had severe respiratory difficulties. She was in a state of diabetic ketoacidosis  related to a gallbladder infection caused by gall stones. Lovely is the first child of her parents and she also has a one year old brother. Her father is a tailor and owns a small shop in the old part of Dhaka City,the capital of Bangladesh. Initially it was very difficult for the parents to accept her disease as there is no history of diabetes in their family, so they never knew that diabetes could occur in such a young child.

The father is sensitive and actually never gives Lovely the insulin shots. His heart break when he heard her cry and when injections were given to her. Initially Lovely pretended to sleep in the morning, so that she could avoid the insulin injections and in the evening she used to hide herself behind the doors. As time passed by, Lovely has started to understand and accept the fact that, she will need to take insulin for the rest of her life and it would be futile for her not to control her sugar levels. Obviously she has accepted the fact; she is not like other children. Her mother gives her the insulin and is always very watchful about Lovely´s hypoglycaemia.

The right to basic healthcare and providing acces to health

“Every person must have the right to basic health care, but this is even more relevant when we talk of children with diabetes. In the western part of the world, we take life and access to health care for granted, but in the less developed parts of the world people are facing a battle to survive every single day. It is unfortunate that still in many countries of the world this basic right (which for cases with type 1 diabetes amounts to a right to live) is denied or not easily accessible. The employees from Novo Nordisk Denmark can be proud of their donation and their companies commitment to the cause as their personal donations to projects such as this one as well as Novo Nordisk’s contribution to set up the World Diabetes Foundation is helping improve the lives of millions of people with diabetes”, elaborates Dr Anil Kapur, WDF Managing Director.

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