David Gillatt from Maymont has been a Type 1 insulin dependent diabetic for more than 50 years.
Dave was recently awarded a Joslin Medal by the Joslin Diabetes Centre in Boston, Mass. The centre is affiliated with the Harvard Medical School. Any diabetic, not necessarily from the United States, can apply. The program has three levels. There is a certificate for anyone who has had the disease for 25 years, a medal and certificate when you achieve 50 years and a distinguished medal and certificate if you make it to 75 years of living with the condition.
Davis was diagnosed in November of 1958, three weeks before his third birthday by Dr. John Scratch of Maymont. He was referred to a Dr. William Kinnear at City Hospital in Saskatoon to begin the process of daily insulin injections.
The Joslin Medal application can be found on the Internet under Joslin Medalist. The application form is only two pages long. Applicants need some form of verification as to when they were diagnosed. The optimum would be a copy of discharge from the hospital. Based on experience, Medicare doesn't keep any records past 10 years, so hoping for this form to still be around is like wishing and hoping for a lot of things that aren't going to come true. Joslin will accept letters from friends, neighbours or relatives as support. In this case David needed to have a relative and two neighbours write letters of support.
David says diabetics may not be aware a program like this even exists. He came across the information while surfing the Internet, where he found a diabetic information, education and support site and discovered a group on that site for people who have been Type 1 diabetic for 30 or more years. When David joined that group, a fellow member of the group notified him of the award and the rest is history.
David also says the program can provide motivation and inspiration for those who have been recently diagnosed as being diabetic. It is a condition that can be survived. David is proof of that.
