It was November 2024, and Greg Bird had just woken up from an induced coma in Royal Perth Hospital after 20 days when he was given some horrific news.
While he had been unconscious, his family had been told he was unlikely to survive after multiple organ failure brought on by Type 2 diabetes.
Greg Bird.Credit: 9 News Perth
Bird had no idea he even had the disease.
The 60-year-old said he had gone in pain to the chemist, who called an ambulance for him.
He was rushed to Midland Hospital before being transferred to Royal Perth Hospital and placed in the coma.
“The diabetes had been sitting there and building up and building up, and it led to the point where the whole system shut down,” he said.
“They didn’t think I was going to make it.”
Bird is one of millions of Australians living with diabetes for whom healthcare costs are, on average, double that of someone without the condition – $9677 per person with diabetes annually compared to $4669.
Those figures have come from new research released by researchers from Deakin, La Trobe and Curtin University, who found the total cost of diabetes to Australia’s healthcare system was $14.2 billion in 2024.
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