Thursday, November 10, 2011

Omnipod in Australia

I posted previously about the tubeless insulin pump, the omnipod and how it isnt available in Australia.  My position isnt to tell you that tubing/no tubing is the way to go my concern is that when new diabetes technologies enter the market they arent welcomed as options that may help with the management of type 1 - for somebody.   (Think affordable CGM's and artificial pancreas!)

Today a good friend emailed me an update -

Omnipod: petition update
 
The reality of getting Omnipod in Australia still remains in doubt according to CTL the supplier in Australia.
 
Apparently a new model of the Omnipod will be available early next year in Europe, this gives us time to energise our petition and increase our noise level to try and get the Federal Health Minister to help us get access to the Omnipod in Australia.
 
 
 
 
 
 
There are now 699 of us who have joined our online petition ( here )which is great but we need to make more noise to convince the Federal Health Minister, Nicola Roxon to change the unfair reimbursement policies that will enable us to get access to the Omnipod in Australia.
 
We have decided to turn our efforts into contacting the two key Diabetes Organsisations and ask them to lobby government to change the unfair policy that is stopping the Omnipod reaching Australia and going onto the chat rooms and spreading the message.    
 
Attached is a list of other contacts and addresses for diabetes organisations and other contacts you may wish to write to.
 
You may also contact Nick Xenophon who I understand has already been approached by several parents from South Australia.  Level 2/31 Ebenezer Place, Adelaide senator.xenophon@aph.gov.au Tel: 08 8232 1144 Fax: 08 8232 3744
 
I wish I had more positive news, let's start making some more noise .
 
Cheers Alex
** ** ** **
Wanna help?
 
Heres the attached list of contacts -
 
Mrs Carol Bennett
Consumer Health Forum
POBox3099
Manuka ACT 2603


Mrs Patricia McKenzie
President, Diabetes Australia
 GPO BOX 3156
CANBERRA ACT 2601

Mr Lewis Kaplan
CEO Diabetes Australia
 GPO BOX 3156
CANBERRA  ACT  2601

Mrs Susan Alberti,
President, JDRF
Level4, 80-84ChandosSt
St Leonards NSW 2065

Mr Mike Wilson
CEO, JDRF
Level4, 80-84ChandosSt
St Leonards NSW 2065

John Douglas
Director, Closing The Loop Pty Ltd
PO Box 120
West Ryde NSW 1685
Chair of the Parliamentary Diabetes Support GroupChair of the Parliamentary Diabetes Support GroupChair of the Parliamentary Diabetes Support Group
Parliamentary Diabetes Support Group
Chair, The Hon Judy Molan MP J.Moylan.MP@aph.gov.au
Dr Mal Washer MP mal.washer.mp@aph.gov.au
For your local federal member of parliament go to;

Chat rooms to visit and add comments



 
 

3 comments:

  1. Wish you luck. You Australians deserve a good OmniPod!

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  2. I wish you luck too Jules! and WOW the new Omnipod looks SO much smaller than the old one! I do have to say though that when we were trying to decide which pump to get Emma, I was all for the Omnipod until I learned that it doesn't have the IOB (insulin on board) feature. I use that ALL the time on her Animas Ping. It is very helpful when you get an "iffy" number and can't decide whether or not to treat it. I haven't checked out the new omnipod, so maybe they have included that in there now? I hope so cause that would be awesome!

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  3. I didn't know that OmniPod wasn't available in Australia. Is there anything that people from the US can do to help? Can we sign the petition?

    I mean, the OmniPod was not an option I was interested in, I kinda like my tubing. But as you point out it's not about everyone using the OminPod, it's about everyone having the option to choose it.

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