Saskatoon man asks province to expand coverage for insulin pumps

Before Paul Kuspiro had his insulin pump, life was chaos.

“It was high blood sugars, low blood sugars. I had paramedics have to come help me multiple times — and that’s even in the States as well,” Kuspiro said Monday at the legislative building.

Now his pump is seven years old and could fail at any time — the pumps are only supposed to last for five years. However, the cost for a new one is between $7,000 and $8,000 and Kuspiro said he can’t afford that.

He’s a single, 32-year-old man in Saskatoon with a mortgage and Type 1 diabetes. He said he has a good job at a warehouse in the city .

“My health benefits don’t cover pumps,” he said. “I can’t afford that kind of stuff.”

Saskatchewan’s health-care system will cover the cost of an insulin pump until someone is 26 years of age. After that, they’re on their own. The cutoff was raised to that a few years ago from 18.

Kuspiro’s pump has been having motor issues and when it stops working he’s going to have to go back to what he was doing before the pump.

“I would have to go back onto my old system of manual injections and things like that, which many people don’t really know. It’s very difficult to keep control of,” said Kuspiro.

He said that if he had to go back to manual injections, he probably wouldn’t be able to work or live his life the same way.

Kuspiro was at the legislature as a guest of the NDP which, along with Kuspiro, is calling for the government to eliminate the cutoff altogether.

Health Minister Jim Reiter didn’t make any promises about the program. He pointed to the age increase done a few years ago, and said it puts Saskatchewan right in the middle of the pack when it comes to the provinces.

Reiter said this is one of many programs the ministry will be taking a look at when it comes time to work out the budget in the spring. Reiter said eliminating the cutoff would help in terms of preventing future, higher, health-care costs for people.

“But it also needs to be looked at in comparison to other costs in the health-care system,” he said. “There’s always new high-cost drugs coming online that people would like to see covered (and) there’s always new technology coming online.”

Reiter said there are a lot of good programs competing with other good programs for the same health-care dollars.