Diabetes needs urgent education too

Diabetes is a public health crisis affecting children and families around the globe.

In this Opinion piece in The Australian national newspaper, Two Wishes CEO David Curl highlights why governments consistently fail to address such issues effectively: they don’t fund the most effective and cost-effective measures to deal with major health and social issues – namely prevention – because they can’t measure (and, therefore, justify funding for) things that are prevented!

Governments are consistently willing to fund late or too-late interventions – ranging from medical interventions via national health systems, to legal interventions via family court systems – where they can measure or count the number of people dealt with. But rarely, if ever, do they adequately fund the more cost-effective earlier interventions and education that would dramatically reduce the need for urgent, often too-late, treatments.

Two Wishes’ 2040 vision is of a world where the wellbeing of children and families is put at the top of every government agenda.

Among other things, this means transforming how governments account for the money they spend: shifting expenditure from expensive, late interventions to more cost-effective, health-focused solutions that prioritise health promotion and education.