Updated | Next budget to include €4 million allocation for diabetes treatment

Health Commissioner wants equal free treatment for all diabetes patients.

Health parliamentary secretary Chris Fearne said that the govenment would, in the next budget, allocate €3.5 million for the acquisition of gliptins, a medication used in the treatment of Type 2 diabetes. These will be provided to patients for free.

Another €500,000 will be allocated for the purchase of insulin sticks, and patients will receive four per day, whatever their age, as per the Ombudsman's advice.

When asked whether the government would be taking immediate action for the 35 urgent Hepatitis C cases, Fearne said that providing the expensive treatment, at €75,000 per patient, would amount to discrimination against other patients.

The government should provide free insulin to Type 2 diabetes patients, Health Commissioner Charles Messina said today in a press conference. Messina said that the government should no longer only provide free insulin to Type 1 diabetes patients, as this amounts to "discrimination" amongst diabetes patients.

In an Ombudsman’s report that will be presented to Parliament, Messina also said that the government should provide adults with a free daily maximum of four insulin sticks, as it does to children and teenagers. As it stands, the daily free maximum is reduced to two sticks as soon as diabetes patients turn 18.

“There is age discrimination which is not made on medical grounds, which is improper and contrary to law” Messina wrote in the report.

Health parliamentary secretary Chris Fearne had told Messina that he agreed with those two recommendations and that legislation could be introduced as early as next year.

Messina also warned that Hepatitis C patients are not being given free treatment because their medication (Harvoni regime) is too expensive - at around €75,000 per patient.

With around 1,000 Hep C sufferers in Malta, the majority of whom are drug abusers, the procurement of such medication would cost millions.

The medication was added to the schedule of medications in the Social Security Act in 2012, back when it had cost around €18,000 per patient. Since then, a more effective treatment (Harvoni regime) was discovered.

In his report, Messina warned that around 20% of untreated Hep C patients will develop liver failure or cancer, complications that would require liver transplants followed by costly anti-rejection drugs.

He said that around 35 Maltese Hep C patients urgently require treatment, the cost of which would amount to around €2.6 million.

“It is true that this new treatment would result in quite a financial burden but, at the same time, it is also true that the patients has been granted the right to have such a treatment free of charge,” he wrote.

Quoting Fearne, Messina said that manufacturers are over-charging for HepC medication and that Malta, along with other EU countries, will pressure manufacturers into lowering the prices.