Simcoe County Insulin Pumpers' Minutes: March 10, 2003 This message is being distributed to all who left their email address on the sign-in sheet. A notice of the next meeting is below. We hope you will come again and in the meantime spread the word about the group and bring another pumper or interested person(s) with you. Meeting Location: Zehrs (Community room upstairs) 472 Bayfield Street North, Barrie Next Meeting: Monday, April 14, 2003 7:00 pm Ğ 9:30 pmÊ (Ask the Pharmacist! Pam Fogh from the Essa Rd. Shoppers Drug Mart will be here to answer our DM and pump questions from the point of view of a pharmacist)! April is also our one year anniversary! Who knows what may happen at this meeting! ;-' See our (your) website for Simcoe County Insulin Pumpers for meeting information etc.: http://homepage.mac.com/dp66/SCIP +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ SIMCOE COUNTY INSULIN PUMPERS MEETING # 8 March 10, 2003 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm We had a total of 11 people attend. As always there were refreshments and snacks.Ê Thanks once again to Zehr's for their kind use of their Community Room! The feature speaker, Dave Goosens of Disetronic Medical Systems, could not attend as scheduled due to a company meeting being called in the US. He hopes to make it to our June or September meeting to show us the new D-Ton Plus pump. Note: Disetronic was recently bought out by Roache Diagnostics, makers of the Compact and AccuCheck bg meters. Despite the feature speaker not showing up we had a long and stimulating group conversation about many aspects of pumps, the MiniMed upgrades and diabetes management! In fact the diehards didn't get out of the meeting room until 10:00pm! But WOW! What a fun and informative meeting! CDA Expo: The annual CDA expo will take place on Saturday, April 12, 2003 from 10:00am to 3:00pm at the Hawkridge Golf & Country Club in Orillia. (Please see our website for more details). Co-founder of our insulin pump support group and long time diabetes advocate, Paul Beckwith, is running for the position of Advocacy to be voted on by any CDA member attending the April 12th Expo in Orillia. Let's show Paul our support! In addition, the CDA expo is loaded with experts, meter reps, pump reps, etc! A great place to do one-stop shopping for information on Diabetes management! A keynote speaker at the Expo will be Barrie "pump-friendly endo", Dr. D. Zatelny (my endo :)) Pump Buddy! Once again we formed more contacts among ourselves to find a "pump buddy". A must have for us pumpers! basically a "pump buddy" is someone who uses a similar pump and you can exchange phone numbers in case one of you run out of supplies at midnight, Friday! Local Pharmacies which stock pump supplies? It was noted that some pharmacies are supplying a limited number of some types of pump supplies. Below are the ones discussed. WARNING! Not all of these pharmacies stock all pump supplies all of the time! However they will apparently order any items requested. If you know of any others which stock pump supplies, please email me and I'll post them on our web site! Atrium Pharmacy, Barrie Atrium Pharmacy, Orillia Shoppers, Essa Rd., Barrie Shoppers, Penetang St., Barrie Further discussions ensued regarding experienced (fast or slow) delivery times from various pump supply companies and how some of us circumvent the issue that Canada Post often leaves the package on the doorstep under the mailbox. Government Lobbying for OHIP coverage of pumps and pump supplies: We had a report on the increased progress of some lobbying originating within the Ontario Government's civil service for OHIP coverage of pumps and pump supplies! This battle will not be completed any year soon so get to our web page and download a copy of Paul's petition! Name Change for Simcoe County Insulin Pumpers? People voiced the concern that many pumpers or prospective pumpers think that if they are outside Simcoe County that they are excluded from attending our meetings! As a result an "unofficial consensus was reached that we should consider a name change. Apparently there is only one other Insulin Pump support group in Ontario and that is Jill Milikens' Pumps4Kids, Quinte group in Belleville. Further Discussions: Many other topics were discussed in small groups and in larger ones as we said our goodnights. Hope to see you all in April! +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Ideas, topics, issues for future meetings? email us: insulinpumper@sympatico.ca +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Diabetes Advocacy: Paul Beckwith is very active in advocacy. Paul is trying to get the Provincial Government to cover diabetes management supplies including pumps. If so covered this will make life easier for many of us who do not have private healthcare insurance and save the government billions in healthcare costs for diabetes complications down the roadÊ In addition please get a copy of his Petition (from our website) and get it signed and returned to him! If you have a few spare hours next year; please contact Paul - he needs your help! Paul: p.c.beckwith@sympatico.ca +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Thanks once again to Zehr's for their kind use of their Community Room! Please feel free to volunteer your own special talent to this growing group! Drop me or Paul an email if you want to help, out for a few minutes a month! Please spread the word about our (your) group! CONTACTS: Paul Beckwith: p.c.beckwith@sympatico.ca Darrin Parker: insulinpumper@sympatico.ca Website: http://homepage.mac.com/dp66/SCIP Note: Simcoe County Insulin Pump Group and it's organizers makes no warranty nor implied warranty for any of the contents and information understood from it's meetings, speakers nor for anything contained within it's correspondence nor opinions expressed herein nor otherwise and does not intend for any information provided by it's presenters or participants at it's meetings and within it's correspondence to supercede in any way any advice from healthcare professionals. Simcoe County Insulin Pump Group does not endorse any brand, model nor manufacturer of Diabetes Management equipment nor supplies. -- __________ Darrin Parker Web Master Simcoe County Insulin Pumpers http://homepage.mac.com/dp66/SCIP