Opposition leader Simon Busuttil addressed a global forum of parliamentarians meeting to discuss the fight against diabetes in Vancounver over the weekend.

The forum was organised by the Parliament Diabetes Global Network which brings together members of Parliament from around the world committed to the fight against diabetes. Dr Busuttil is a vice-president of this network.

Dr Busuttil appealed to parliamentarians to take the fight against diabetes to their national Parliaments. Proposing Malta as a model, he called on parliamentarians to set up a cross-party Diabetes Working Group in their respective national parliament. A similar bipartisan group was successfully set up in Malta on the initiative of Dr Busuttil two years ago.

Other concrete ways in which parliamentarians could push diabetes up the political agenda was by pushing national governments to adopt a policy and strategy on diabetes and by presenting legislative proposals to help prevent diabetes by reducing obesity, Dr Busuttil said.

He also called on parliamentarians to write political commitments on the fight against diabetes into their respective election manifesto and to engage in international networking. “We do not need to reinvent the wheel. Look around you and learn from the experience of others. Someone else is likely to have done it before and you can do it better,” he said.

The theme of the forum was the human, social and economic cost of diabetes. More than 60 countries from across the world were represented in Vancouver.

At the end of the conference, Dr Busuttil was confirmed vice-president of the network for a second term.