Wednesday 5 January 2011

Number 29 - The Hospital


The portrayal of diabetes and diabetics in the media has been discussed many times, whether it is in short news reports, government campaigns in the press and television or through the fictionalised accounts in popular television drama. These short forays are often quickly digested and swiftly forgotten by the majority of Joe Public, apart from leaving maybe a lasting impression that diabetics caused their own problems, whether by the ingestion of copious amounts of sugar, or by being fat and lazy and indifferent to their own health (none of which, incidentally, is rooted in fact).

What can have a far greater impact, however, and give solid reinforcement of those misguided impressions, is the ‘in-depth’ documentary treatment of the topic. By presenting a series of worse-case scenarios to a backdrop of despair and outrage at the huge (financial) cost to the taxpayer, The Hospital, on Channel 4, managed to give a completely distorted impression of both the causes and effects of diabetes. In the context of the whole series, of which this was one episode, then maybe that judgement is a little harsh, as the premise of the series as a whole was to show the terrible waste of NHS resources spent on people who appeared incapable or unwilling to take responsibility for their health.

Taken in isolation, however, this episode seemed to have no balance – there was no discussion of how many diabetics worked hard to look after their health, and probably being far more diligent than the majority of the non-diabetic audience for the show. The whole episode had an undercurrent of blame, concluding with a sweeping statement that had nothing to do with the majority of cases featured in the programme. The consultant featured despaired that, with growing levels of obesity in the population, the number of cases like those featured would bring the NHS to breaking point. However, since the majority of cases involved young Type 1 patients in which obesity is not a risk factor, his closing remarks bore little relation to the preceding fifty minutes.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, the programme generated a great deal of discussion and produced a surprisingly wide range of opinions in this thread. Particularly outraged were the parents of Type 1 children who were completely blameless by any measure, and yet would now be associated once more with the impression that they somehow contributed to their condition. If only a more balanced programme could be produced (not as part of a series like this), in consultation with actual diabetics and vetted assiduously by JDRF and Diabetes UK, so that the public could be educated on the huge complexity of diabetes and dispel their prejudices!


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