Reclaim your freedom from the fingerstick
#FingerStickFree advocates for South African Medical Aids to include life-changing Continuous or Flash Glucose Monitoring as a Prescribed Minimum Benefit for people living with Diabetes.
Reclaim your freedom from the fingerstick
#FingerStickFree advocates for South African Medical Aids to include life-changing Continuous or Flash Glucose Monitoring as a Prescribed Minimum Benefit for people living with Diabetes.
What does it mean to be #FingerStickFree?
BEFORE SENSING TECHNOLOGY WAS AVAILABLE
BUT JUST IMAGINE...
How sensing technology helps people living with Diabetes
Pain free monitoring
Flash glucose monitoring allows you to conveniently check your glucose with a painless, 1-second scan of your CGM or FGM device using your phone instead of fingersticks!
Preventative-care
The glucose monitoring systems on sensing technology devices provide healthcare professionals with deeper insights and allow for informed treatment decisions.
Live the life you want
Live life without painful finger testing, make informed data-driven decisions and be free to enjoy your favourite activities with empowered insight on your own health.
The device lets you see your glucose levels 24 hours a day
No need to stick your finger five times a day
No more squeezing out a drop of blood for each reading
Simply scan the device for flash glucose monitoring (FGM)
Or send the reading to your phone for continuous glucose monitoring (CGM)
Many medical aids are delaying in deciding whether to pay for FGM and CGM even though they know these devices can help their members.
We put pressure on medical aids through the petition to encourage them to make this choice.
Diabetes should not be lethal in South Africa, but it’s still the leading killer of women and the second most common cause of death in men in South Africa. More people die from Diabetes than from TB, HIV, and malaria put together. *
Here’s how it works
Get Medical Aid Cover
Own Your Overall Health
Make Real Change Happen
Be part of the community
Join the #FingerStickFree movement and add your voice to the call of many other people living with Diabetes. Together, we can make an impact and help gain more access to CGM or FGM for all members of our community.
Read Expert Medical Opinions
Join our community
We’re a thriving, vibrant community of people living with Diabetes, who have transitioned from traditional fingerstick testing to newer GCM and FGM devices. Connect with us - we’re all in this together.
Past Events
These are just a few of the events that have brought our community together in the past. Sign up below if you’d like to be notified of any upcoming events.
Food Freedom with Glucose Monitoring Tech: A Dietitian's Perspective with Mbali Mapholi, Aziwe Booi and Bridget McNulty
Food Freedom with Glucose Monitoring Tech: A Dietitian's Perspective with Mbali Mapholi, Aziwe Booi and Bridget McNulty
Find out more about the journey
We know it can be hard to know where to turn when things get complicated and hard. This page offers articles, petitions, and other advocacy efforts made to improve access to glucose monitoring devices in South Africa. To start off, read founder of Sweet Life, Brigitte Mcnulty’s article on her journey with Diabetes advocacy.
Featured In
Friends of #FingerStickFree
Sensing Technology in the News
Watch this eNCA interview about South African diabetes advocacy
Watch the Carte Blanche episode about diabetes
Make sensor technology accessible to all, Type 1 diabetic say
The latest technology in Diabetes Mellitus makes big strides
David vs Goliath: How SA Diabetics Got Discovery to Listen to Them
Support for diabetes sensor technology gathers momentum
The #FingerStickFree Movement
Diabetes is a major public health issue in South Africa. It is the leading cause of death of all people above 60 years of age, and impacts millions of lives.** Yet people with this chronic condition can live long and healthy lives. The key is effective diabetes management. That is where the #FingerStickFree movement came in - a campaign that put pressure on medical aids to make life-saving wearable devices that help track glucose levels available to those who want it. This is our story.
Hungry to be Heard
#FingerStickFree is a movement that saw South African people living with Diabetes come together to bring about a medical aid breakthrough. Abbott and Diabetes Advocacy South Africa came together with the hope of mobilising a movement to give voices to the masses living with Diabetes.
The Fork in the Road
Flash Glucose Monitoring devices can offer people living with diabetes real-time information about their glucose levels. This shows valuable data throughout the day and can help manage Diabetes more effectively. But medical aids only covered people living with Diabetes for the fingerstick test method. This is old-school, inconvenient, and doesn’t offer users the latest available life-saving technology.
Change is Sweet
Medical aid schemes knew about the advantages of flash glucose monitoring (FGM) and continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices but were delaying making decisions on whether to pay for them. Public support was needed to help put on the pressure. Together with Sweet Life, thousands of people living with Diabetes raised their voices on public platforms and called out their medical aids by name. It worked! Discovery now offer certain CGM and FGM devices as part of their Prescribed Minimum Benefit.
More medical aids need to follow suit. So we’ll continue to advocate for all people living with Diabetes to ask their medical aids for #FingerStickFree sensory technology to made available to them.
Join this community
Be part of this community. Sign up, share your stories and engage with other people living with Diabetes while living their best life
