A PARENT
Before CGMs were funded for seven-year-old Freya, her mum, Claire Campbell would ‘measure’ everyday things and experiences in ‘CGMs’. (She used the brand name, but for clarity and fairness we’ll just call them CGMs.) Claire explains: ‘I would compare the cost of everything to a CGM. Our friends would complain about the cost of things like their car loan payment or childcare cost, and I would think to myself, well it’s cheaper than a CGM! Our fridge broke, and the cost of a new fridge was three months of CGM. I wouldn’t want to buy myself anything because the thought of how many CGMs I could buy for the same price.’ When Claire picked up her first package of funded sensors, she says she cried with happiness. ‘I think I cried because I realised I was so relieved of the financial strain. The constant hustle to afford CGMs was finally over, and no-one else, other than type 1s, actually knew how financially draining funding CGMs was.’
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DIABETES WELLNESS | Autumn 2025
A RETIRED FARM MANAGER
For 66-year-old Phil McKinnon, the announcement that they would be funded couldn’t come soon enough for the Hamiltonian. Eighteen months ago, he was offered a month’s trial, and he thought, why not? ‘Of course, that’s a fatal mistake. Once I’d used it, I didn’t want to give them up,’ he says. ‘But I couldn’t believe the difference it made. It was like a fog had been lifted from my brain. Totally unbelievable. I was not aware what that higher glucose was doing to me. I still have lows, but I don’t have those extremes.’ Lately retired, Phil was a farm operations manager, working in the artificial breeding industry. ‘So I was getting to the stage in my head where I had to decide that if I hadn’t been funded whether I’d continue with them or not because it was so much money each month. But I didn’t want to stop using them either.’ Phil was first diagnosed with type 2 diabetes after he contracted pancreatitis 13 years ago. About three years ago, his diabetes doctor started classing him as type 1 as he wasn’t producing any insulin at all. Phil says no-one knew what caused his pancreatitis until they removed his gall bladder. ‘You know how you get gall stones? Well, mine was filled with sand and they couldn’t see it with scans, and that’s what caused it.’ Phil celebrated when he heard CGMs were being funded and that day went out and bought a bottle of bubbles. Phil is enjoying not having to fork out a lot of money for a sensor that helps keep his blood sugars stable. ‘You become so reliant on it that I don’t know if I would’ve been able to stop buying it because it’s made a massive difference to me. Not having to pay for it has been brilliant.’ Although his career was rurally centred, Phil has been a townie
Now retired, Phil spends many hours in his shed creating scrap metal art. Due to the noise when he’s welding and cutting, he relies on his CGM having an audible alarm so he can deal with a low in a timely manner.
for quite some time, living in Kirikiriroa Hamilton. A year after officially retiring, he still picks up some seasonal work when needed. On one occasion, Phil was at a job when his CGM alarm went off. He was sucking back a gel pack when another seasonal worker came up to him and asked him if this was breakfast? ‘I said, “no”. She said, “do you have diabetes?” And I said, “yeah”. So her granddaughter has diabetes. And obviously it’s made a huge difference to them too, to not have to pay for the bloody things anymore.’ Phil adds that he is very thankful to all those who made the funding possible and throws in a shout-out to the wonderful diabetes team at Waitematā District Health Board. ‘They’re simply the best.’
