Observations on a Sunny Day

Tanya has gone to Dnipropetrovs'k for the day, leaving me to putter about the house on my own, which I quite enjoy once in a while.  She is going to get insulin for Roman and to "check out" the flower market conveniently located near the bus depot.

We buy insulin for Roman that is made in Europe.  As Tanya says Insulin made in Ukraine or China (provided free by the health system) is only for people who want to die.  We started looking on Monday; only one drugstore in town carries it.  They didn't have any so Tanya phoned the best drugstore in Dnipropetrovs'k associated with the Medical Research Institute.  They were out of it too but would have some today.

Diabetes is a plague here in Ukraine and in Russia too.  I don't know the stats but I know two women who have lost a leg to it, each of whom may lose the other as well.  I should look up the stats for Canada.  From what I gather, much of the diabetes here is Type 2 ie adult onset and diet related but I don't know that for sure.  I do know that regardless, it all seems to be treated with insulin.

There does not seem to be much in the way of an education program in Ukraine for the public or even for the diabetics themselves.  Treatment seems to be a standard two injections per day.  Glucometers are available in most of the larger drugstores but they are the same price as in Canada and so are the strips at $1 each.  Using a glucometer to adjust insulin doses to maintain blood sugar at something approaching normal is totally beyond the reach of a huge percentage of the population.

Even if there were some kind of quality control on domestic and Chinese insulin it would save a lot of misery and likely lives too. There ought to be a special place in Hell for people who traffic in other people's misery (see also The Third Man) and the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats who allow it.