Sticking To The Point

The news that Theresa May, our Home Secretary, has been diagnosed with Type One Diabetes and will now have to live the rest of her life accordingly has made all the headlines. It has been given a good deal of coverage in the media.  In recent years there has been a lot of news about the increase in cases of Type Two Diabetes as well as Type One.

There is a great deal of information about these medical conditions and the problems they present around the web and this is not the place to discuss them.  The Home Secretary has the advantage that having enhanced security arrangements there is always someone in close attention.  None the less it is likely that she will always have to carry an injector with her.

If so, she will join the very many people at present who have conditions that are of high risk of sudden and severe reactions who may lose consciousness with little or no warning.  Many of these are equipped with bracelets, or dogtags with 24/7 medical contacts or both, sometimes supporting information.  Critically, there are those who carry injectors necessary to saving life.

One of the greatest dangers for people in this category is that a police officer will be on the scene.  If so they will simply assume that the person is either a junkie or a drunk or both and behave accordingly.  They are not trained to look for any other cause of collapse and even if it is clear that there is an Alert tag are unlikely to do anything because of a lack of understanding.

They will stick to the premise that someone who does down in the street or shop must be either drunk or junked.  There are been a couple of cases reported that even when someone with the ill person does know and protests they are then threatened with arrest for threatening behaviour.  Worse, the presence of an injector is automatically assumed to indicate a substance abuser even although it is clear that it is an emergency item.

                                                                                                       

Inevitably, there have been cases of mortality in instances of this kind.  Sometimes even, medic's who do make it to the scene make the same mistake if they do not look for the evidence or information.  The worst case scenario is when the police officers insist on the drunk thesis in spite of other information and evidence if they are present.

We may now assume that the Home Secretary has a better insight into issues of this kind.  One initiative she can certainly take, if only for selfish reasons, is to ensure that police training, "awareness" and dare one say it being mindful of diversity and disability in medical terms is vastly improved. 

With luck we get fewer of these cases of people dying in the street for lack of care and attention as a result of police failures with the subsequent shifty evidence given in Coroner's Courts and blank denials of any error or liability.

Could the Home Secretary please do something about this?

Some of the dead were diabetics.