Diabetics all over the world constantly suffer from a lack of access to health coverage, education, medical supplies, and community support. Baring the burden of having diabetes aside, type 1 and type 2 diabetics in Palestine have to go through the additional stress of living in the occupied lands within the Israeli settlers’ discriminatory setting.
Diabetes is indeed a rising concern all over the world. The issue of diabetes in Palestine is one that also deserves to be discussed. Diabetes prevalence in Palestine (15.3%) is in fact higher than the world average of 6%: there are more than 174,300 confirmed diagnoses cases. Despite the perhaps shocking numbers, various sources also report that the actual percentages could be 18 to 21%. Type 1 diabetics constitute around 5% of the cases, while the rest are Type 2 diabetics.
Problems that diabetics face in Palestine can be sources back to various problems, ranging from social, to economic, to political challenges. Mohammed Seyam, a young leader in Diabetes, the international diabetes federation, MENA chapter leader at T1D International, and senior medical students, tells us in an exclusive interview about the latter topic.
Mohammed says he’d rather divide the challenges into three categories. The community first plays a discriminatory role in how diabetics are treated in the West Bank especially: people give you looks when you give yourself an insulin shot in public. Society is not educated about the matter and they just assume and make claims. The healthcare sector is also an obstacle to diabetic relief in the country. Mohammed informs us that there are “not enough endocrinologists, and [barely any] diabetes educators who work in the healthcare system – either public or private. The lack of diabetes education and the absence of general national guidelines for management are huge issues. Finally, politics. “Living under occupation affects people when it comes to money, employment, unemployment, poverty, and instability. All influence when people buy medications, diabetes supplies, for them to do their blood sugar tests, go for a check-up with doctors.”, Seyam says.
Digging deeper into this aspect of the problem, we decided to investigate more into the added burden that Israeli strikes and wars bring to type1 and tyep2 diabetics, and more specifically, in the West Bank. The Sheikh Jarrah experience was indeed a tough one. “Even for someone who had backup supplies, it was hard. I can’t imagine what it was like for those who don’t”, says Mohammed. Seyam even describes his experience as a “luxurious” one, per se. He continues, “I had everything, I packed them all in one bag in case of an emergency where we would have to leave our home. It happened once for a few hours.” However, the struggles do not stop here. The stress, instability, fear, and intense feelings affect blood sugar levels and hinder good diabetes management. Mohammed reaffirms this and tells us that “the stress that [they] had was so high disabled them from properly managing [their] diabetes because of the strikes and the fear of being bombed at any second. No one is safe.”
After thoroughly understanding the current status-quo of diabetics in Palestine, it would also be interesting to discover potential solutions to the latter, in an attempt to improve the conditions of this segment of the population which goes through enough on the personal level during the day.
Advocacy is the key which shall stay steadfast at all costs. Mohammed tells us that “the number one solution is for us to be louder. The louder you are; the more people will hear you, and the more people hear you, they will follow whatever you are doing. And by that, we can reach our goal faster. And for that, I say that education and advocacy are crucial when it comes to solving a problem such as diabetes in the ME in general, and in a setting like Palestine”.
The significance of advocacy was indeed noticed in the post-Sheikh Jarrah period. Mohammed was indeed one of the most active contributors which pushed towards the establishment of the emergency plan in accordance with the WHO and other organizations. He was part of the whole movement and was one of the main reasons why people in the West Bank can now have insulin for free.
Our interviewee also stressed the crucial need for further education about diabetes. Experts who have the knowledge, who are skilled, and who can transmit proper medical education and serve as support systems within wider communities should be present in more instances. “Community awareness and educating the community too is highly beneficial. How the community reacts to diabetes can actually help”, Seyam suggests. Previously, individual initiatives coming from the private sector made huge differences. In 2016, a mobile clinic, which included endocrinologists, diabetes-specialized nurses, dieticians, and podiatrists, roamed around various towns in the West Bank. According to Al Jazeera, “the clinic – a large truck stocked with free treatment options – is at the forefront of the battle against diabetes, which has now become the leading indirect cause of death in Palestine as the main risk factor for developing cardiovascular disease.”
We can clearly see that diabetics’ situation in Palestine is truly alarming: having one of the highest prevalence rates globally, going through psychological distress of the occupation, and having wide-spread tight economic resources, indeed make the perfect recipe for diabetes mismanagement and struggles. In light of the current improvements, and the enhanced access to almost-free insulin, the rest of medical supplies still lie in the darkness of the crisis. Insulin rationing was perhaps lessened thanks to the recent plan, however, the other challenges must be addressed and solved. It is with individuals such as Mohammed Seyam, our interviewee, that change and fruitful advocacy can be achieved, hoping that the status-quo will change soon and that diabetics in Palestine witness some sort of relief regarding their health at least.